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issa 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  SCIENTIFIC  SERIES. 


VOLUME  II. 


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THE 


INTERNATIONAL  SCIENTIFIC  SERIES. 

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2 


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3 


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4 


The  International  Scientific  Series  — (Continued.) 


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New  York : D.  APPLETON  k CO.,  72  Fifth  Avenue. 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  SCIENTIFIC  SERIES. 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS; 


OR, 


THOUGHTS  ON  THE  APPLICATION  OF  THE  PRINCIPLES 
OF  u NATURAL  SELECTION ” AND  “ INHERITANCE ” 

TO  POLITICAL  SOCIETY. 


BY 

WALTER  BAGEHOT,  Esq., 

AUTHOR  OF  u THE  ENGLISH  CONSTITUTION.” 


NEW  YORK: 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY, 

72  FIFTH  AVENUE. 

1898 


■f . 3 c n 4 3 a£ 


30  I 

tsars' 


CONTENTS. 


I THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE.  . 

II.  THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT 

HI.  NATION-MAKING 

IV.  NATION  -MAKING 

V.  THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION  . 

VI.  VERIFIABLE  PROGRESS  POLITICALLY  CONSIDERED 


PAG8 

1 

41 

81 

112 

165 

205 


699274 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS 


No.  I. 

THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE. 

One  peculiarity  of  this  age  is  the  sudden  acquisition  of 
much  physical  knowledge.  There  is  scarcely  a depart- 
ment of  science  or  art  which  is  the  same,  or  at  all  the  same, 
as  it  was  fifty  years  ago.  A new  world  of  inventions — of 
railways  and  of  telegraphs — has  grown  up  around  us 
which  we  cannot  help  seeing  ; a new  world  of  ideas  is  in 
the  air  and  affects  us,  though  we  do  not  see  it.  A full 
estimate  of  these  effects  would  require  a great  book, 
and  I am  sure  I could  not  write  it ; but  I think  T may 
usefully,  in  a few  papers,  show  how,  upon  one  or  two 
great  points,  the  new  ideas  are  modifying  two  old 
sciences — politics  and  political  economy.  Even  upon 
these  points  my  ideas  must  be  incomplete,  for  the 
subject  is  novel ; but,  at  any  rate,  I may  suggest  some 
conclusions,  and  so  show  what  is  requisite  even  if  I do 
not  supply  it. 


2 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


If  we  wanted  to  describe  one  of  the  most  marked 
results,  perhaps  the  most  marked  result,  of  late  thought, 
we  should  say  that  by  it  everything  is  made  ‘ an  anti- 
quity.5 When,  in  former  times,  our  ancestors  thought 
of  an  antiquarian,  they  described  him  as  occupied  with 
coins,  and  medals,  and  Druids5  stones ; these  were  then 
the  characteristic  records  of  the  decipherable  past,  and 
it  was  with  these  that  decipherers  busied  themselves. 
But  now  there  are  other  relics  ; indeed,  all  matter  is 
become  such.  Science  tries  to  find  in  each  bit  of  earth 
the  record  of  the  causes  which  made  it  precisely  what 
it  is ; those  forces  have  left  their  trace,  she  knows,  as 
much  as  the  tact  and  hand  of  the  artist  left  their  mark 
on  a classical  gem.  It  would  be  tedious  (and  it  is  not 
in  my  way)  to  reckon  up  the  ingenious  questionings  by 
which  geology  has  made  part  of  the  earth,  at  least,  tell 
part  of  its  tale  ; and  the  answers  would  have  been 
meaningless  if  physiology  and  conchology  and  a hun- 
dred similar  sciences  had  not  brought  their  aid.  Such 
subsidiary  sciences  are  to  the  decipherer  of  the  present 
day  what  old  languages  were  to  the  antiquary  of  other 
days  ; they  construe  for  him  the  words  which  he  dis- 
covers, they  give  a richness  and  a truth-  like  complexity 
to  the  picture  which  he  paints,  even  in  cases  where  the 
particular  detail  they  tell  is  not  much.  But  what  here 
concerns  me  is  that  man  himself  has,  to  the  eye  of 
science,  become  6 an  antiquity.5  She  tries  to  read,  is 
beginning  to  read,  knows  she  ought  to  read,  in  the  frame 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE. 


3 


of  each  man  the  result  of  a whole  history  of  all  his  life, 
of  what  he  is  and  what  makes  him  so, — of  all  his  fore- 
fathers, of  what  they  were  and  of  what  made  them  so. 
Each  nerve  has  a sort  of  memory  of  its  past  life,  is 
trained  or  not  trained,  dulled  or  quickened,  as  the  case 
may  be ; each  feature  is  shaped  and  characterised,  or 
left  loose  and  meaningless,  as  may  happen ; each  hand  is 
marked  with  its  trade  and  life,  subdued  to  what  it  works 
in; — if  we  could  but  see  it. 

It  may  be  answered  that  in  this  there  is  nothing  new; 
that  we  always  knew  how  much  a man’s  past  modified 
a man’s  future ; that  we  all  knew  how  much  a man  is 
apt  to  be  like  his  ancestors ; that  the  existence  of 
national  character  is  the  greatest  commonplace  in  the 
world  ; that  when  a philosopher  cannot  account  for  any- 
thing in  any  other  manner,  he  boldly  ascribes  it  to  an  oc- 
cult quality  in  some  race.  But  what  physical  science  doe? 
is,  not  to  discover  the  hereditary  element,  but  to  rendei 
it  distinct, — to  give  us  an  accurate  conception  of  what 
we  may  expect,  and  a good  account  of  the  evidence  by 
which  we  are  led  to  expect  it.  Let  us  see  what  that 
science  teaches  on  the  subject;  and,  as  far  as  may  be,  I 
will  give  it  in  the  words  of  those  who  have  made  it  a 
professional  study,  both  that  I may  be  more  sure  to  state 
it  rightly  and  vividly,  and  because — as  I am  about  to 
apply  these  principles  to  subjects  which  are  my  own 
pursuit — I would  rather  have  it  quite  clear  that  I have 
not  made  my  premises  to  suit  my  own  conclusions. 


t 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


1st,  then,  as  respects  the  individual,  we  learn  as 
follows : 

‘ Even  while  the  cerebral  hemispheres  are  entire,  and 
in  full  possession  of  their  powers,  the  brain  gives  rise 
to  actions  which  are  as  completely  reflex  as  those  of  the 
spinal  cord. 

‘When  the  eyelids  wink  at  a flash  of  light,  or  a 
threatened  blow,  a reflex  action  takes  place,  in  which  the 
afferent  nerves  are  the  optic,  the  efferent,  the  facial. 
When  a bad  smell  causes  a grimace,  there  is  a reflex 
action  through  the  same  motor  nerve,  while  the  olfactory 
nerves  constitute  the  afferent  channels.  In  these  cases, 
therefore,  reflex  action  must  be  effected  through  the 
brain,  all  the  nerves  involved  being  cerebral. 

‘ When  the  whole  body  starts  at  a lond  noise,  the 
afferent  auditory  nerve  gives  rise  to  an  impulse  which 
passes  to  the  medulla  oblongata,  and  thence  affects 
the  great  majority  of  the  motor  nerves  of  the  body. 

‘ It  may  be  said  that  these  are  mere  mechanical 
actions,  and  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  acts  which  we 
associate  with  intelligence.  But  let  ns  consider  what 
takes  place  in  such  an  act  as  reading  aloud.  In  this 
case,  the  whole  attention  of  the  mind  is,  or  ought  to 
be,  bent  upon  the  subject-matter  of  the  book  ; while  a 
multitude  of  most  delicate  muscular  actions  are  going 
on,  of  which  the  reader  is  not  in  the  slightest  degree 
aware.  Thus  the  book  is  held  in  the  hand,  at  the  right 
distance  from  the  eyes  5 the  eyes  are  moved,  from  side 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE. 


5 


to  side,  over  the  lines,  and  up  and  down  the  pages. 
Further,  the  most  delicately  adjusted  and  rapid  move- 
ments of  the  muscles  of  the  lips,  tongue,  and  throat,  of 
laryngeal  and  respiratory  muscles,  are  involved  in  the 
production  of  speech.  Perhaps  the  reader  is  standing 
up  and  accompanying  the  lecture  with  appropriate 
gestures.  And  yet  every  one  of  these  muscular  acts 
may  be  performed  with  utter  unconsciousness,  on  his 
part,  of  anything  but  the  sense  of  the  words  in  the 
book.  In  other  words,  they  are  reflex  acts. 

6 The  reflex  actions  proper  to  the  spinal  cord  itself 
are  natural , and  are  involved  in  the  structure  of  the 
cord  and  the  properties  of  its  constituents.  By  the 
help  of  the  brain  we  may  acquire  an  affinity  of  artificial 
reflex  actions.  That  is  to  say,  an  action  may  require 
all  our  attention  and  all  our  volition  for  its  first,  or 
second,  or  third  performance,  but  by  frequent  repetition 
it  becomes,  in  a manner,  part  of  our  organisation,  and 
is  performed  without  volition,  or  even  consciousness. 

‘ As  everyone  knows,  it  takes  a soldier  a very  long 
time  to  learn  his  drill — to  put  himself,  for  instance,  into 
the  attitude  of  6 attention 5 at  the  instant  the  word  of 
command  is  heard.  But,  after  a time,  the  sound  of  the 
word  gives  rise  to  the  act,  whether  the  soldier  be  think- 
ing of  it  or  not.  There  is  a story,  which  is  credible 
enough,  though  it  may  not  be  true,  of  a practical  joker, 
who,  seeing  a discharged  veteran  carrying  home  his 
dinner,  suddenly  called  out  ‘ Attention  ! 5 whereupon 


6 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


the  man  instantly  brought  his  hands  down,  and  lost  his 
mutton  and  potatoes  in  the  gutter.  The  drill  had  been 
gone  through,  and  its  effects  had  become  embodied  in 
the  man’s  nervous  structure. 

4 The  possibility  of  all  education  (of  which  military 
drill  is  only  one  particular  form)  is  based  upon  the 
existence  of  this  power  which  the  nervous  system 
possesses,  of  organising  conscious  actions  into  more  or 
less  unconscious,  or  reflex,  operations.  It  may  be  laid 
down  as  a rule,  that  if  any  two  mental  states  be  called 
up  together,  or  in  succession,  with  due  frequency  and 
vividness,  the  subsequent  production  of  the  one  of  them 
will  suffice  to  call  up  the  other,  and  that  whether  we 
desire  it  or  not.’ 1 

The  body  of  the  accomplished  man  has  thus  become 
by  training  different  from  what  it  once  was,  and 
different  from  that  of  the  rude  man ; it  is  charged  with 
stored  virtue  and  acquired  faculty  which  come  away 
from  it  unconsciously. 

Again,  as  to  race,  another  authority  teaches  : — 4 Man’s 
life  truly  represents  a progressive  development  of  the 
nervous  system,  none  the  less  so  because  it  takes  place 
out  of  the  womb  instead  of  in  it.  The  regular  trans- 
mutation of  motions  which  are  at  first  voluntary  into 
secondary  automatic  motions,  as  Hartley  calls  them, 
is  due  to  a gradually  effected  organisation ; and  we 
may  rest  assured  of  this,  that  co-ordinate  activity 

Huxley’s  Elementary  Physiology,  pp.  284-286. 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE. 


7 


itl ways  testifies  to  stored-up  power,  either  innate.  02 
acquired. 

‘ The  way  in  which  an  acquired  faculty  of  the  parent 
animal  is  sometimes  distinctly  transmitted  to  the 
progeny  as  a heritage,  instinct,  or  innate  endowment, 
furnishes  a striking  confirmation  of  the  foregoing  ob- 
servations. Power  that  has  been  laboriously  acquired 
and  stored  up  as  statical  in  one  generation  manifestly 
in  such  case  becomes  the  inborn  faculty  of  the  next ; 
and  the  development  takes  place  in  accordance  with 
that  law  of  in < renting  speciality  and  complexity  of  adap- 
tation to  external  nature  which  is  traceable  through 
the  animal  kingdom ; or,  in  other  words,  that  law  of 
progress  from  the  general  to  the  special  in  development 
which  the  appearance  of  nerve  force  amongst  natural 
forces  and  the  complexity  of  the  nervous  system  of  man 
both  illustrate.  As  the  vital  force  gathers  up,  as  it 
were,  into  itself  inferior  forces,  and  might  be  said  to 
be  a development  of  them,  or,  as  in  the  appearance 
of  nerve  force,  simpler  and  more  general  forces  are 
gathered  up  and  concentrated  in  a more  special  and 
complex  mode  of  energy;  so  again  a further  speciali- 
sation takes  place  in  the  development  of  the  nervous 
system,  whether  watched  through  generations  or  through 
individual  life.  It  is  not  by  limiting  our  observations 
to  the  life  of  the  individual,  however,  who  is  but  a link 
in  the  chain  of  organic  beings  connecting  the  past  with 
the  future,  that  we  shall  come  at  the  full  truth  ; the 


8 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


present  individual  is  the  inevitable  consequence  of  his 
antecedents  in  the  past,  and  in  the  examination  of 
these  alone  do  we  arrive  at  the  adequate  explanation  of 
him.  It  behoves  us,  then,  having  found  any  faculty  to  be 
innate,  not  to  rest  content  there,  but  steadily  to  follow 
backwards  the  line  of  causation,  and  thus  to  display,  if 
possible,  its  manner  of  origin.  This  is  the  more  neces- 
sary with  the  lower  animals,  where  so  much  is  innate/  1 

The  special  laws  of  inheritance  are  indeed  as  yet  un- 
known. All  which  is  clear,  and  all  which:  Hbr  to  my 
purpose  is,  that  there  is  a tendency,  a probability, 
greater  or  less  according  to  circumstances,  but  always 
considerable,  that  the  descendants  of  cultivated  parents 
will  have,  by  born  nervous  organisation,  a greater  apti- 
tude for  cultivation  than  the  descendants  of  such  as 
are  not  cultivated  ; and  that  this  tendency  augments, 
in  some  enhanced  ratio,  for  many  generations. 

I do  not  think  any  who  do  not  acquire — and  it  takes 
a hard  effort  to  acquire — this  notion  of  a transmitted 
nerve  element  will  ever  understand  6 the  connective 
tissue’ of  civilisation.  We  have  here  the  continuous 
force  which  binds  age  to  age,  which  enables  each  to 
begin  with  some  improvement  on  the  last,  if  the  last  did 
itself  improve ; which  makes  each  civilisation  not  a set 
of  detached  dots,  but  a line  of  colour,  surely  enhancing 
shade  by  shade.  There  is,  by  this  doctrine,  a physical 
cause  of  improvement  from  generation  to  generation: 

1 Maud  si  ey  on  the  Physiology  and  Pathology  of  the  Mind , p,  78. 


THE  PKELIMIN ARY  AGE.  0 

and  no  imagination  which  has  apprehended  it  can  forr 
get  it;  but  unless  you  appreciate  that  cause  in  its 
subtle  materialism,  unless  you  see  it,  as  it  were,  playing 
upon  the  nerves  of  men,  and,  age  after  age,  making 
nicer  music  from  finer  chords,  you  cannot  comprehend 
the  principle  of  inheritance  either  in  its  mystery  or  its 
power. 

These  principles  are  quite  independent  of  any  theory 
as  to  the  nature  of  matter,  or  the  nature  of  mind. 
They  are  as  true  upon  the  theory  that  mind  acts  on 
matter — though  separate  and  altogether  different  from 
it — as  upon  the  theory  of  Bishop  Berkeley  that  there  is 
no  matter,  but  only  mind ; or  upon  the  contrary  theory 
— that  there  is  no  mind,  but  only  matter  ; or  upon  the 
yet  subtler  theory  now  often  held — that  both  mind  and 
matter  are  different  modifications  of  some  one  tertium 
quid , some  hidden  thing  or  force.  All  these  theories  admit 
—indeed  they  are  but  various  theories  to  account  for — the 
fact  that  what  we  call  matter  has  consequences  in  what 
we  call  mind,  and  that  what  we  call  mind  produces  re- 
sults in  what  we  call  matter;  and  the  doctrines  I quote 
assume  only  that.  Our  mind  in  some  strange  way  acts 
on  our  nerves,  and  our  nerves  in  some  equally  strange 
way  store  up  the  consequences,  and  somehow  the  result, 
as  a rule  and  commonly  enough,  goes  down  to  our 
descendants  ; these  primitive  facts  all  theories  admit, 
and  all  of  them  labour  to  explain. 

Nor  have  these  plain  principles  any  relation  to  the 


10 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


old  difficulties  of  necessity  and  freewill.  Every  Free- 
willist  holds  that  the  special  force  of  free  volition  is 
applied  to  the  pre-existing  forces  of  our  corporeal 
structure  ; he  does  not  consider  it  as  an  agency  acting 
in  vacuo , but  as  an  agency  acting  upon  other  agencies. 
Every  Freewillist  holds  that,  upon  the  whole,  if  you 
strengthen  the  motive  in  a given  direction,  mankind 
tend  more  to  act  in  that  direction.  Better  motives — 
better  impulses,  rather — come  from  a good  body  : worse 
motives  or  worse  impulses  come  from  a bad  body.  A 
Freewillist  may  admit  as  much  as  a Necessarian  that 
such  improved  conditions  tend  to  improve  human  action, 
and  that  deteriorated  conditions  tend  to  deprave  human 
action.  No  Freewillist  ever  expects  as  much  from  St. 
Giles’s  as  he  expects  from  Belgravia : he  admits  an 
hereditary  nervous  system  as  a datum  for  the  will, 
though  he  holds  the  will  to  be  an  extraordinary  in- 
coming 6 something.’  No  doubt  the  modern  doctrine 
of  the  ‘ Conservation  of  Force,’  if  applied  to  decision, 
is  inconsistent  with  free  will ; if  you  hold  that  force  ‘ is 
never  lost  or  gained,’  you  cannot  hold  that  there  is  a 
real  gain — a sort  of  new  creation  of  it  in  free  volition. 
But  I have  nothing  to  do  here  with  the  universal  6 Con- 
servation of  Force.’  The  conception  of  the  nervous 
organs  as  stores  of  will -made  power  does  not  raise  or 
need  so  vast  a discussion. 

Still  less  are  these  principles  to  be  confounded  with 
Mr.  Buckle’s  idea  that  material  forces  have  been  the 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE. 


11 


mam-springs  of  progress,  and  moral  causes  secondary, 
and,  in  comparison,  not  to  be  thought  of.  On  the 
contrary,  moral  causes  are  the  first  here.  It  is  the 
action  of  the  will  that  causes  the  unconscious  habit ; it 
is  the  continual  effort  of  the  beginning  that  creates  the 
hoarded  energy  of  the  end ; it  is  the  silent  toil  of  the 
first  generation  that  becomes  the  transmitted  aptitude 
of  the  next.  Here  physical  causes  do  not  create  the 
moral,  but  moral  create  the  physical ; here  the  begin- 
ning is  by  the  higher  energy,  the  conservation  and  pro- 
pagation only  by  the  lower.  But  we  thus  perceive  how 
a science  of  history  is  possible,  as  Mr.  Buckle  said, — a 
science  to  teach  the  laws  of  tendencies — created  by  the 
mind,  and  transmitted  by  the  body — which  act  upon 
and  incline  the  will  of  man  from  age  to  age. 


II. 

But  how  do  these  principles  change  the  philosophy  of 
our  politics  ? I think  in  many  ways  ; and  first,  in  one 
particularly.  Political  economy  is  the  most  system- 
atised and  most  accurate  part  of  political  philosophy ; 
and  yet,  by  the  help  of  what  has  been  laid  down,  I 
think  we  may  travel  back  to  a sort  of  ‘ pre-economic 
age/  when  the  very  assumptions  of  political  economy 
did  not  exist,  when  its  precepts  would  have  been 


12 


■ PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


ruinous,  and  when  the  very  contrary  precepts  were 
requisite  and  wise. 

For  this  purpose  I do  not  need  to  deal  with  the  dim 
ages  which  ethnology  just  reveals  to  us — with  the  stone 
age,  and  the  flint  implements,  and  the  refuse-heaps. 
The  time  to  which  I would  go  back  is  only  that  just 
before  the  dawn  of  history — coeval  with  the  dawn, 
perhaps,  it  would  be  right  to  say — -fordhe  first  historians 
saw  such  a state  of  society,  though  they  saw  other  and 
more  advanced  states  too : a period  of  which  we  have 
distinct  descriptions  from  eye-witnesses,  and  of  which  the 
traces  and  consequences  abound  in  the  oldest  law.  6 The 
effect,’  says  Sir  Henry  Maine,  the  greatest  of  our  living 
jurists — the  only  one,  perhaps,  whose  writings  are  in 
keeping  with  our  best  philosophy — c of  the  evidence  de- 
rived from  comparative  jurisprudence  is  to  establish  that 
view  of  the  primeval  condition  of  the  human  race  which 
is  known  as  the  Patriarchal  Theory.  There  is  no  doubt, 
of  course,  that  this  theory  was  originally  based  on  the 
Scriptural  history  of  the  Hebrew  patriarchs  in  Lower 
Asia;  but,  as  has  been  explained  already,  its  connection 
with  Scripture  rather  militated  than  otherwise  against 
its  reception  as  a complete  theory,  since  the  majority  of 
the  inquirers  who  till  recently  addressed  themselves 
with  most  earnestness  to  the  colligation  of  social  phe- 
nomena, were  either  influenced  by  the  strongest  preju- 
dice against  Hebrew  antiquities  or  by  the  strongest 
desire  to  construct  their  system  without  the  assistance 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE. 


13 


of  religious  records.  Even  now  there  is  perhaps  a 
disposition  to  undervalue  these  accounts,  or  rather  to 
decline  generalising  from  them,  as  forming  part  of  the 
traditions  of  a Semitic  people.  It  is  to  be  noted,  how- 
ever, that  the  legal  testimony  comes  nearly  exclusively 
from  the  institutions  of  societies  belonging  to  the  Indo- 
European  stock,  the  Romans,  Hindoos,  and  Sclavonians 
supplying  the  greater  part  of  it ; and  indeed  the  diffi- 
culty, at  the  present  stage  of  the  inquiry,  is  to  know 
where  to  stop,  to  say  of  what  races  of  men  it  is  not 
allowable  to  lay  down  that  the  society  in  which  they 
are  united  was  originally  organised  on  the  patriarchal 
model.  The  chief  lineaments  of  such  a society,  as  col- 
lected from  the  early  chapters  in  Genesis,  I need  not 
attempt  to  depict  with  any  minuteness,  both  because 
they  are  familiar  to  most  of  us  from  our  earliest  child- 
hood, and  because,  from  the  interest  once  attaching  to 
the  controversy  which  takes  its  name  from  the  debate 
between  Locke  and  Filiner,  they  fill  a whole  chapter, 
though  not  a very  profitable  one,  in  English  literature. 
The  points  which  lie  on  the  surface  of  the  history  are 
these  : — The  eldest  male  parent — the  eldest  ascendant — 
is  absolutely  supreme  in  his  household.  His  dominion 
extends  to  life  and  death,  and  is  as  unqualified  over  his 
children  and  their  houses  as  over  his  slaves ; indeed  the 
relations  of  sonship  and  serfdom  appear  to  differ  in  little 
beyond  the  higher  capacity  which  the  child  in  blood 
possesses  of  becoming  one  day  the  head  of  a family 


14 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


himself.  The  flocks  and  herds  of  the  children  are  the 
flocks  and  herds  of  the  father,  and  the  possessions  of 
the  parent,  which  he  holds  in  a representative  rather 
than  in  a proprietary  character,  are  equally  divided  at 
his  death  among  his  descendants  in  the  first  degree, 
the  eldest  son  sometimes  receiving  a double  share  under 
the  name  of  birthright,  but  more  generally  endowed 
with  no  hereditary  advantage  beyond  an  honorary  pre- 
cedence. A less  obvious  inference  from  the  Scriptural 
accounts  is  that  they  seem  to  plant  us  on  the  traces  of 
the  breach  which  is  first  effected  in  the  empire  of  the 
parent.  The  families  of  Jacob  and  Esau  separate  and 
form  two  nations ; but  the  families  of  Jacob’s  children 
hold  together  and  become  a people.  This  looks  like  the 
immature  germ  of  a state  or  commonwealth,  and  of  an 
order  of  rights  superior  to  the  claims  of  family  relation. 

‘ If  I were  attempting  for  the  more  special  purposes 
of  the  jurist  to  express  compendiously  the  characteristics 
of  the  situation  in  which  mankind  disclose  themselves 
at  the  dawn  of  their  history,  I should  be  satisfied  to 
quote  a few  verses  from  the  66  Odyssee  ” of  Homer  : — 

“ ‘ r oi(Tiv  5 1 otfr’  a-}  opal  fiov\r]<p6poi  oijre  OefiKTres. 

Oe/aLarevei  5e  eKaaros 
naidcoy  rjd’  our  aAA.7jA.coj;  aKeyovaiv!  ” 

66  They  have  neither  assemblies  for  consultation  nor 
themistes , but  everyone  exercises  jurisdiction  over  his 
wives  and  his  children,  and  they  pay  no  regard  to  one 
another/’  ’ 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE. 


15 


And  this  description  of  the  beginnings  of  history  is 
confirmed  by  what  may  be  called  the  last  lesson  of  pre- 
historic ethnology.  Perhaps  it  is  the  most  valuable,  as 
it  is  clearly  the  most  sure  result  of  that  science,  that  it 
has  dispelled  the  dreams  of  other  days  as  to  a primitive 
high  civilisation.  History  catches  man  as  he  emerges 
from  the  patriarchal  state:  ethnology  shows  how  he 
lived,  grew,  and  improved  in  that  state.  The  conclusive 
arguments  against  the  imagined  original  civilisation 
are  indeed  plain  to  everyone.  Nothing  is  more  intel- 
ligible than  a moral  deterioration  of  mankind — nothing 
than  an  aesthetic  degradation — nothing  than  a political 
degradation.  But  you  cannot  imagine  mankind  giving 
up  the  plain  utensils  of  personal  comfort,  if  they  once 
knew  them  ; still  less  can  you  imagine  them  giving  up 
good  weapons — say  bows  and  arrows — if  they  once  knew 
them.  Yet  if  there  were  a primitive  civilisation  these 
things  must  have  been  forgotten,  for  tribes  can  be  found 
in  every  degree  of  ignorance,  and  every  grade  of  know- 
ledge as  to  pottery,  as  to  the  metals,  as  to  the  means  of 
comfort,  as  to  the  instruments  of  war.  And  what  is 
more,  these  savages  have  not  failed  from  stupidity ; 
they  are,  in  various  degrees  of  originality,  inventive 
about  these  matters.  You  cannot  trace  the  roots  of  an 
old  perfect  system  variously  maimed  and  variously 
dying  ; you  cannot  find  it,  as  you  find  the  trace  of  the 
Latin  language  in  the  mediaeval  dialects.  On  the  con- 
trary, yon  find  it  beginning—  as  new  scientific  discoveries* 


IG 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


and  inventions  now  begin — here  a little  and  there  a 
little,  the  same  tiling  half-done  in  various  half-ways, 
and  so  as  no  one  who  knew  the  best  way  would  ever 
have  begun.  An  idea  used  to  prevail  that  bows  and 
arrows  were  the  c primitive  weapons  5 — the  weapons  of 
universal  savages;  but  modern  science  has  made  a 
table,1  and  some  savages  have  thenr-and  some  have  not, 
and  some  have  substitutes  of  one  sort  and  some  have 
substitutes  of  another — several  of  these  substitutes 
being  like  the  c boomerang,’  so  much  more  difficult  to 
hit  on  or  to  use  than  the  bow,  as  well  as  so  much  less 
effectual.  And  not  only  may  the  miscellaneous  races 
of  the  world  be  justly  described  as  being  upon  various 
edges  of  industrial  civilisation,  approaching  it  by 
various  sides,  and  falling  short  of  it  in  various* par- 
ticulars, but  the  moment  they  see  the  real  thing  they 
know  how  to  use  it  as  well,  or  better,  than  civilised 
man.  The  South  American  uses  the  horse  which  the 
European  brought  better  than  the  European.  Many 
races  use  the  rifle — the  especial  and  very  complicated 
weapon  of  civilised  man — better,  upon  an  average,  than 
he  can  use  it.  The  savage  with  simple  tools — tools  he 
appreciates — is  like  a child,  quick  to  learn,  not  like  an 
old  man,  who  has  once  forgotten  and  who  cannot  ac- 
quire again.  Again,  if  there  had  been  an  excellent 
aboriginal  civilisation  in  Australia  and  America,  where, 

1 See  the  very  careful  table  and  admirable  discussion  in  Sir  John 
Lubbock’ e Pre- Historic  Times . 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE. 


17 


botanists  and  zoologists  ask,  are  its  vestiges  ? If  these 
savages  did  care  to  cultivate  wheat,  where  is  the  wild 
wheat  gone  which  their  abandoned  culture  must  have 
teft?  if  they  did  give  up  using  good  domestic  animals, 
what  has  become  of  the  wild  ones  which  would,  according 
to  all  natural  laws,  have  sprung  up  out  of  them  ? 
This  much  is  certain,  that  the  domestic  animals  of 
Europe  have,  since  what  may  be  called  the  discovery  of 
the  world  during  the  last  hundred  years,  run  up  and 
down  it.  The  English  rat — not  the  pleasantest  of  our 
domestic  creatures — has  gone  everywhere  ; to  Australia, 
to  New  Zealand,  to  America:  nothing  but  a compli- 
cated rat-miracle  could  ever  root  him  out.  Nor  could 
a common  force  expel  the  horse  from  South  America 
since  the  Spaniards  took  him  thither;  if  we  did  not 
know  the  contrary  we  should  suppose  him  a principal 
aboriginal  animal.  Where  then,  so  to  say,  are  the  rats 
and  horses  of  the  primitive  civilisation  ? Not  only  can 
we  not  find  them,  but  zoological  science  tells  us  that 
they  never  existed,  for  the  ‘ feebly  pronounced,5  the  in- 
effectual, marsupials  of  Australia  and  New  Zealand 
could  never  have  survived  a competition  with  better 
creatures,  such  as  that  by  which  they  are  now 
perishing. 

We  catch  then  a first  glimpse  of  patriarchal  man, 
not  with  any  industrial  relics  of  a primitive  civilisation, 
but  with  some  gradually  learnt  knowledge  of  the  simpler 
irts,  with  some  tamed  animals  and  some  little  know- 


18 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


Ledge  of  the  course  of  nature  as  far  as  it  tells  upon  the 
seasons  and  affects  the  condition  of  simple  tribes. 
This  is  what,  according  to  ethnology,  we  should  expect 
the  first  historic  man  to  be,  and  this  is  what  we  in  fact 
find  him.  But  what  was  his  mind  ; how  are  we  to 
describe  that? 

I believe  the  general  description  in  which  Sir  John 
Lubbock  sums  up  his  estimate  of  the  savage  mind  suits 
the  patriarchal  mind.  4 Savages,5  he  says,  6 unite  the 
character  of  childhood  with  the  passions  and  strength 
of  men.5  And  if  we  open  the  first  record  of  the  pagan 
world — the  poems  of  Homer — how  much  do  we  find 
that  suits  this  description  better  than  any  other. 
Civilisation  has  indeed  already  gone  forward  ages 
beyond  the  time  at  which  any  such  description  is  com- 
plete. Man,  in  Homer,  is  as  good  at  oratory,  Mr.  Glad- 
stone seems  to  say,  as  he  has  ever  been,  and,  much  as 
that  means,  other  and  better  things  might  be  added  to 
it.  But  after  all,  how  much  of  the  4 splendid  savage  5 
there  is  in  Achilles,  and  how  much  of  the  6 spoiled  child 
sulking  in  his  tent.5  Impressibility  and  excitability 
are  the  main  characteristics  of  the  oldest  Greek  history, 
and  if  we  turn  to  the  east,  the  4 simple  and  violent 5 
world,  as  Mr.  Kinglake  calls  it,  of  the  first  times  meets 
us  every  moment. 

And  this  is  precisely  what  we  should  expect.  An 
4 inherited  drill,5  science  says,  6 makes  modern  nations 
what  they  are  ; their  born  structure  bears  the  trace  of  the 
Laws  of  their  fathers ; 5 but  the  ancient  nations  cnme  into 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE. 


19 


no  such  inheritance ; they  were  the  descendants  of 
people  who  did  what  was  right  in  their  own  eyes  ; they 
were  born  to  no  tutored  habits,  no  preservative  bonds, 
and  therefore  they  were  at  the  mercy  of  every  impulse 
and  blown  by  every  passion. 

The  condition  of  the  primitive  man,  if  we  conceive 
of  him  rightly,  is,  in  several  respects,  different  from  any 
we  lmow.  We  unconsciously  assume  around  us  the 
existence  of  a great  miscellaneous  social  machine  work- 
ing to  our  hands,  and  not  only  supplying  our  wants, 
but  even  telling  and  deciding  when  those  wants  shall 
come.  No  one  can  now  without  difficulty  conceive  how 
people  got  on  before  there  were  clocks  and  watches  ; as 
Sir  G.  Lewis  said,  6 it  takes  a vigorous  effort  of  the 
imagination  5 to  realise  a period  when  it  was  a serious 
difficulty  to  know  the  hour  of  day.  And  much  more  is 
it  difficult  to  fancy  the  unstable  minds  of  such  men  as 
neither  knew  nature,  which  is  the  clock-work  of  ma- 
terial civilisation,  nor  possessed  a polity,  which  is  a 
kind  of  clock-work  to  moral  civilisation.  They  never 
could  have  known  what  to  expect ; the  whole  habit 
of  steady  but  varied  anticipation,  which  makes  our 
minds  what  they  are,  must  have  been  wholly  foreign 
to  theirs. 

Again,  I at  least  cannot  call  up  to  myself  the  loose 
conceptions  (as  they  must  have  been)  of  morals  which 
then  existed.  If  we  set  aside  all  the  element  derived 
from  law  and  polity  which  runs  through  our  current 


20 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


moral  notions,  I hardly  know  what  we  shall  have  left. 
The  residuum  was  somehow,  and  in  some  vague  way, 
intelligible  to  the  ante-political  man,  but  it  must  have 
been  uncertain,  wavering,  and  unfit  to  be  depended 
upon.  In  the  best  cases  it  existed  much  as  the  vague 
feeling  of  beauty  now  exists^  in  minds  sensitive  but 
untaught ; a still  small  voice  of  uncertain  meaning ; an 
unknown  something  modifying  everything  else,  and 
higher  than  anything  else,  yet  in  form  so  indistinct 
that  when  you  looked  for  it,  it  was  gone—  or  if  this  be 
thought  the  delicate  fiction  of  a later  fancy,  then 
morality  was  at  least  to  be  found  in  the  wild  spasms  of 
‘ wild  justice,5  half  punishment,  half  outrage, — but 
anyhow,  being  unfixed  by  steady  law,  it  was  inter- 
mittent, vague,  and  hard  for  us  to  imagine.  Everybody 
who  has  studied  mathematics  knows  how  many  shadowy 
difficulties  he  seemed  to  have  before  he  understood  the 
problem,  and  how  impossible  it  was  when  once  the  de- 
monstration had  flashed  upon  him,  ever  to  comprehend 
those  indistinct  difficulties  again,  or  to  call  up  the  men- 
tal confusion  that  admitted  them.  So  in  these  days, 
when  we  cannot  by  any  effort  drive  out  of  our  minds 
the  notion  of  law,  we  cannot  imagine  the  mind  of  one 
who  had  never  known  it,  and  who  could  not  by  any 
effort  have  conceived  it. 

Again,  the  primitive  man  could  not  have  imagined 
what  we  mean  by  a nation.  We  on  the  other  hand  cannot 
imagine  those  to  whom  it  is  a difficulty;  ‘we  know 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE. 


21 


what  it  is  when  you  do  not  ask  us/  but  we  cannot  veiy 
quickly  explain  or  define  it.  But  so  much  as  this  is  plain, 
a nation  means  a like  body  of  men,  because  of  that  like- 
ness capable  of  acting  together,  and  because  of  that 
likeness  inclined  to  obey  similar  rules;  and  even  this 
Homer’s  Cyclops — used  only  to  sparse  human  beings — 
could  not  have  conceived. 

To  sum  up — law — rigid,  definite,  concise  law — is  the 
primary  want  of  early  mankind  ; that  which  they  need 
above  anything  else,  that  which  is  requisite  before  they 
can  gain  anything  else.  But  it  is  their  greatest  diffi- 
culty, as  well  as  their  first  requisite ; the  thing  most 
out  of  their  reach,  as  well  as  that  most  beneficial  to 
them  if  they  reach  it.  In  later  ages  many  races  have 
gained  much  of  this  discipline  quickly,  though  pain- 
fully ; a loose  set  of  scattered  clans  has  been  often  and 
often  forced  to  substantial  settlement  by  a rigid  con- 
queror ; the  Homans  did  half  the  work  for  above  half 
Europe.  But  where  could  the  first  ages  find  Homans 
or  a conqueror  ? Men  conquer  by  the  power  of  govern- 
ment, and  it  was  exactly  government  which  then  was 
not.  The  first  ascent  of  civilisation  was  at  a steep 
gradient,  though  when  now  we  look  down  upon  it,  it 
seems  almost  nothing. 

III. 

IIow  the  step  from  polity  to  no  polity  was  made  dis- 
tinct, history  does  not  record, — on  this  point  Sir  Henry 


22 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


Maine  lias  drawn  a most  interesting  conclusion  from 
his  peculiar  studies  : — 

6 It  would  be/  lie  tells  us,  6 a very  simple  explanation 
of  tlie  origin  of  society  if  we  could  base  a general  con- 
clusion on  the  hint  furnished  us  by  the  scriptural  ex- 
ample already  adverted  to,  and  could  suppose  that  com- 
munities began  to  exist  wherever  a family  held  together 
instead  of  separating  at  the  death  of  its  patriarchal 
chieftain.  In  most  of  the  Greek  states  and  in  Rome 
there  long  remained  the  vestiges  of  an  ascending  series 
of  groups  out  of  which  the  state  was  at  first  constituted. 
The  family,  house,  and  tribe  of  the  Romans  may  be 
taken  as  a type  of  them,  and  they  are  so  described  to 
us  that  we  can  scarcely  help  conceiving  them  as  a sys- 
tem of  concentric  circles  which  have  gradually  expanded 
from  the  same  point.  The  elementary  group  is  the 
family,  connected  by  common  subjection  to  the  highest 
male  ascendant.  The  aggregation  of  families  forms  the 
gens,  or  house.  The  aggregation  of  houses  makes  the 
tribe.  The  aggregation  of  tribes  constitutes  the  com- 
monwealth. Are  we  at  liberty  to  follow  these  indica- 
tions, and  to  lay  down  that  the  commonwealth  is  a 
collection  of  persons  united  by  common  descent  from 
the  progenitor  of  an  original  family?  Of  this  we 
may  at  least  be  certain,  that  all  ancient  societies  re- 
garded themselves  as  having  proceeded  from  one  original 
stock,  and  even  laboured  under  an  incapacity  for  com- 
prehending any  reason  except  this  for  their  holding 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGrE. 


23 


together  in  political  union.  The  history  of  political 
ideas  begins,  in  fact,  with  the  assumption  that  kinship 
in  blood  is  the  sole  possible  ground  of  community  in 
political  functions ; nor  is  there  any  of  those  subver- 
sions of  feeling,  which  we  term  emphatically  revolutions, 
so  startling  and  so  complete  as  the  change  which  is 
accomplished  when  some  other  principle — such  as  that, 
for  instance,  of  local  contiguity — establishes  itself  for 
the  first  time  as  the  basis  of  common  political  action.5 

If  this  theory  were  true,  the  origin  of  politics  would 
nut  seem  a great  change,  or,  in  early  days,  be  really  a 
great  change.  The  primacy  of  the  elder  brother,  in 
tribes  casually  cohesive,  would  be  slight ; it  would  be 
the  beginning  of  much,  but  it  would  be  nothing  in 
itself;  it  would  be — to  take  an  illustration  from  the 
opposite  end  of  the  political  series — it  would  be  like  the 
headship  of  a weak  parliamentary  leader  over  adherents 
who  may  divide  from  him  in  a moment ; it  was  the 
germ  of  sovereignty, — it  was  hardly  yet  sovereignty 
itself. 

Ido  not  myself  believe  that  the  suggestion  of  Sir  Henry 
Maine — for  he  does  not,  it  will  be  seen,  offer  it  as  a con- 
fident theory — is  an  adequate  account  of  the  true  origin 
of  politics.  I shall  in  a subsequent  essay  show  that 
:liere  are,  as  it  seems  to  me,  abundant  evidences  of 
a time  still  older  than  that  which  he  speaks  of.  But  the 
theory  of  Sir  Henry  Maine  serves  my  present  purpose 
well.  It  describes,  and  truly  describes,  a kind  of  life 
3 


24 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


antecedent  to  our  present  politics,  and  the  conclusion  I 
have  drawn  from  it  will  be  strengthened,  not  weakened, 
when  w e eome  to  examine  and  deal  with  an  age  yet 
older,  and  a social  bond  far  more  rudimentary. 

But  when  once  polities  were  begun,  there  is  no  diffi- 
culty in  explaining  wffiy  they  lasted.  Whatever  may 
be  said  against  the  principle  of  ‘ natural  selection 5 in 
other  departments,  there  is  no  doubt  of  its  predominance 
in  early  human  history.  The  strongest  killed  out  the 
weakest,  as  they  could.  And  I need  not  pause  to  prove 
that  any  form  of  polity  is  more  efficient  than  none;  that 
an  aggregate  of  families  owning  even  a slippery  alle- 
giance to  a single  head,  would  be  sure  to  have  the  better 
of  a set  of  families  acknowledging  no  obedience  to  any- 
one, but  scattering  loose  about  the  world  and  fighting 
where  they  stood.  Homer’s  Cyclops  would  be  powerless 
against  the  feeblest  band ; so  far  from  its  being  singular 
that  we  find  no  other  record  of  that  state  of  man,  so 
unstable  and  sure  to  perish  was  it  that  we  should  rather 
wonder  at  even  a single  vestige  lasting  down  to  the  age 
when  for  picturesqueness  it  became  valuable  in  poetry. 

But,  though  the  origin  of  polity  is  dubious,  we  are 
upon  the  terra  firma  of  actual  records  when  we  speak  of 
the  preservation  of  polities.  Perhaps  every  young 
Englishman  who  comes  now-a-days  to  Aristotle  or 
Plato  is  struck  with  their  conservatism : fresh  from  the 
liberal  doctrines  of  the  present  age,  he  wonders  at  find- 
ing in  those  recognised  teachers  so  much  contrary 


THE  PR E LIMI N AH Y AGE. 


25 


teaching.  They  both — unlike  as  they  are — hold  with 
Xenophon — so  unlike  both — that  man  is  the  £ hardest 
of  all  animals  to  govern.5  Of  Plato  it  might  indeed  be 
plausibly  said  that  the  adherents  of  an  intuitive  philo- 
sophy, being c the  tories  of  speculation,’  have  commonly 
been  prone  to  conservatism  in  government;  but  Aris- 
totle, the  founder  of  the  experience  philosophy,  ought, 
according  to  that  doctrine,  to  have  been  a liberal,  if 
anyone  ever  was  a liberal.  In  fact,  both  of  these  men 
lived  when  men  had  not  £ had  time  to  forget  ’ the 
difficulties  of  government.  We  have  forgotten  them 
altogether.  We  reckon,  as  the  basis  of  our  culture, 
upon  an  amount  of  order,  of  tacit  obedience,  of  prescrip- 
tive governability,  which  these  philosophers  hoped  to 
get  as  a principal  result  of  their  culture.  We  take 
without  thought  as  a datum , what  they  hunted  as  a 
qucesitum. 

In  early  times  the  quantity  of  government  is  much 
more  important  than  its  quality.  What  you  want  is  a 
comprehensive  rule  binding  men  together,  making  them 
do  much  the  same  things,  telling  them  what  to  expect 
of  each  other — fashioning  them  alike,  and  keeping  them 
so.  What  this  rule  is  does  not  matter  so  much.  A 
good  rule  is  better  than  a bad  one,  but  any  rule  is  better 
than  none ; while,  for  reasons  which  a jurist  will  ap- 
preciate, none  can  be  very  good.  But  to  gain  that  rule, 
what  may  be  called  the  impressive  elements  of  a polity 
are  incomparably  more  important  than  its  useful  ela- 


Z6 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


ments.  How  to  get  the  obedience  of  men  is  the  hard 
problem ; what  you  do  with  that  obedience  is  less 
critical. 

To  gain  that  obedience,  the  primary  condition  is  the 
identity — not  the  union,  but  the  sameness — of  what  we 
now  call  Church  and  State.  Dr.  Arnold,  fresh  from 
the  study  of  Greek  thought  and  Roman  history,  used 
to  preach  that  this  identity  was  the  great  cure  for  the 
misguided  modern  world.  But  he  spoke  to  ears  filled 
with  other  sounds  and  minds  filled  with  other  thoughts, 
and  they  hardly  knew  his  meaning,  much  less  heeded 
it.  But  though  the  teaching  was  wrong  for  the  modern 
age  to  which  it  was  applied,  it  was  excellent  for  the  old 
world  from  which  it  was  learnt.  What  is  there  requisite 
is  a single  government — call  it  Church  or  State,  as 
you  like — regulating  the  whole  of  human  life.  No 
division  of  power  is  tlmn  endurable  without  danger — 
probably  without  destruction  ; the  priest  must  not  teach 
one  thing  and  the  king  another ; king  must  be  priest, 
and  prophet  king  : the  two  must  say  the  same,  because 
they  are  the  same.  The  idea  of  difference  between 
spiritual  penalties  and  legal  penalties  must  never  be 
awakened.  Indeed,  early  Greek  thought  or  early  Roman 
thought  would  never  have  comprehended  it.  There  was 
a kind  of  rough  public  opinion  and  there  were  rough, 
very  rough,  hands  which  acted  on  it.  We  now  talk  of 
political  penalties  and  ecclesiastical  prohibition,  and  the 
social  censure,  but  they  were  all  one  then.  Nothing  is 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE. 


27 


very  like  those  old  communities  now,  but  perhaps  a 
‘ trade’s  union  9 is  as  near  as  most  things ; to  work 
cheap  is  thought  to  be  a c wicked  5 thing,  and  so  some 
Broadhead  puts  it  down. 

The  object  of  such  organisations  is  to  create  what 
may  be  called  a cake  of  custom.  All  the  actions  of  life 
are  to  be  submitted  to  a single  rule  for  a single  object ; 
that  gradually  created  the  6 hereditary  drill  5 which 
science  teaches  to  be  essential,  and  which  the  early 
instinct  of  men  saw  to  be  essential  too.  That  this 
regime  forbids  free  thought  is  not  an  evil ; or  rather, 
though  an  evil,  it  is  the  necessary  basis  for  the  greatest 
good ; it  is  necessary  for  making  the  mould  of  civilisa- 
tion, and  hardening  the  soft  fibre  of  early  man. 

The  first  recorded  history  of  the  Aryan  race  snows 
everywhere  a king,  a council,  and,  as  the  necessity  of 
early  conflicts  required,  the  king  in  much  prominence 
and  with  much  power.  That  there  could  be  in  such 
ages  anything  like  an  oriental  despotism,  or  a Caesarean 
despotism,  was  impossible;  the  outside  extra-political 
army  which  maintains  them  could  not  exist  when  the 
tribe  was  the  nation,  and  when  all  the  men  in  the  tribe 
were  warriors.  Hence,  in  the  time  of  Homer,  in  the 
first  times  of  Borne,  in  the  first  times  of  ancient 
Germany,  the  king  is  the  most  visible  part  of  the  polity, 
because  for  momentary  welfare  he  is  the  most  useful. 
The  close  oligarchy,  the  patriciate,  which  alone  could 
know  the  fixed  law,  alone  could  apply  the  fixed  law, 


28 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


which  was  recognised  as  the  authorised  custodian  of 
the  fixed  law,  had  then  sole  command  over  the  primary 
social  want.  It  alone  knew  the  code  of  drill ; it  alone 
was  obeyed ; it  alone  could  drill.  Mr.  Grote  has 
admirably  described  the  rise  of  the  primitive  oligarchies 
upon  the  face  of  the  first  monarchy,  but  perhaps  because 
he  so  much  loves  historic  Athens,  he  has  not  sympa- 
thised with  pre-historic  Athens.  He  has  not  shown  us 
the  need  of  a fixed  life  when  all  else  was  unfixed  life. 

It  would  be  schoolboy ish  to  explain  at  length  how 
well  the  two  great  republics,  the  two  winning  republics 
of  the  ancient  world,  embody  these  conclusions.  Rome 
and  Sparta  were  drilling  aristocracies,  and  succeeded 
because  they  were  such.  Athens  was  indeed  of  another 
and  higher  order ; at  least  to  us  instructed  moderns 
who  know  her  and  have  been  taught  by  her.  Rut  to  the 
6 Philistines ? of  those  days  Athens  was  of  a lower 
order.  She  was  beaten  ; she  lost  the  great  visible  game 
which  is  all  that  short-sighted  contemporaries  know. 
She  was  the  great  ‘ free  failure  ’ of  the  ancient  world. 
She  began,  she  announced,  the  good  things  that  were 
to  come  ; but  she  was  too  weak  to  display  and  enjoy 
them ; she  was  trodden  down  by  those  of  coarser  make 
and  better  trained  frame. 

How  much  these  principles  are  confirmed  by  Jewish 
history  is  obvious.  There  was  doubtless  much  else  in 
Jewish  history — whole  elements  with  which  I am  not 
here  concerned.  But  so  much  is  plain.  The  Jews  were 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE, 


29 


in  the  beginning  the  most  unstable  of  nations ; they 
were  submitted  to  their  law,  and  they  came  out  the 
most  stable  of  nations.  Their  polity  was  indeed  defec- 
tive in  unity.  After  they  asked  for  a king  the  spiritual 
and  the  secular  powers  (as  we  should  speak)  were  never 
at  peace,  and  never  agreed.  And  the  ten  tribes  who 
lapsed  from  their  law,  melted  away  into  the  neighbouring 
nations.  Jeroboam  has  been  called  the  ‘ first  Liberal ; ’ 
and,  religion  apart,  there  is  a meaning  in  the  phrase. 
He  began  to  break  up  the  binding  polity  which  was 
what  men  wanted  in  that  age,  though  eager  and  inven- 
tive minds  always  dislike  it.  But  the  Jews  who  adhered 
to  their  law  became  the  Jews  of  the  day,  a nation  of  a 
firm  set  if  ever  there  was  one. 

It  is  connected  with  this  fixity  that  jurists  tell  us 
that  the  title  ‘ contract 5 is  hardly  to  be  discovered  in 
the  oldest  la  w.  In  modern  days,  in  civilised  days,  men’s 
choice  deter  mines  nearly  all  they  do.  But  in  early 
times  that  choice  determined  scarcely  anything.  The 
guiding  rule  was  the  law  of  status . Everybody  was 
born  to  a place  in  the  community  : in  that  place  he  had 
to  stay:  in  that  place  he  found  certain  duties  which  be 
had  to  fulfil,  and  which  were  all  he  needed  to  think  of. 
The  net  of  custom  caught  men  in  distinct  spots,  and 
kept  each  where  he  stood. 

What  are  called  in  European  politics  the  principles 
of  1789,  are  therefore  inconsistent  with  the  early  world; 
they  are  fitted  only  to  the  new  world  in  which  society 


30 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


has  gone  through  its  early  task ; when  the  inherited 
organisation  is  already  confirmed  and  fixed ; when  the 
soft  minds  and  strong  passions  of  youthful  nations  are 
fixed  and  guided  by  hard  transmitted  instincts.  Till 
then  not  equality  before  the  law  is  necessary  but  ine- 
quality, for  what  is  most  wanted  is  an  elevated  elite,  who 
know  the  law : not  a good  government  seeking  the 
happiness  of  its  subjects,  but  a dignified  and  overawing 
government  getting  its  subjects  to  obey : not  a good 
law,  but  a comprehensive  law  binding  all  life  to  one 
routine.  Later  are  the  ages  of  freedom ; first  are  the 
ages  of  servitude.  In  1789,  when  the  great  men  of 
tlie  Constituent  Assembly  looked  on  the  long  past,  they 
hardly  saw  anything  in  it  which  could  be  praised,  or 
admired,  or  imitated : all  seemed  a blunder — a complex 
error  to  be  got  rid  of  as  soon  as  might  be.  But  that 
error  had  made  themselves.  On  their  very  physical 
organisation  the  hereditary  mark  of  old  times  was 
fixed ; their  brains  were  hardened  and  their  nerves  were 
steadied  by  the  transmitted  results  of  tedious  usages. 
The  ages  of  monotony  had  their  use,  for  they  trained 
men  for  ages  when  they  need  not  be  monotonous. 

IY. 

But  even  yet  we  have  not  realised  the  full  benefit  of 
those  early  polities  and  those  early  laws.  They  not  only 
‘ bound  up  5 men  in  groups,  not  only  impressed  on  men 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE. 


31 


a certain  set  of  common  usages,  but  often,  at  least  in  an 
indirect  way,  suggested,  if  I may  use  the  expression, 
national  character.' 

We  cannot  yet  explain — I am  sure,  at  least,  I cannot  at- 
tempt toexplain — all  the  singularphenomenaof  national 
character : how  completely  and  perfectly  they  seem  to 
be  at  first  framed  ; how  slowly,  how  gradually  they  can 
alone  be  altered,  if  they  can  be  altered  at  all.  But 
there  is  one  analogous  fact  which  may  help  us  to  see, 
at  least  dimly,  how  such  phenomena  are  caused.  There  is 
a character  of  ages , as  well  as  of  nations  ; and  as  we  have 
full  histories  of  many  such  periods,  we  can  examine  exact- 
ly when  and  how  the  mental  peculiarity  of  each  began, 
and  also  exactly  when  and  how  that  mental  peculiarity 
passed  away.  We  have  an  idea  of  Queen  Anne’s  time, 
for  example,  or  of  Queen  Elizabeth’s  time,  or  George 
II.’s  time ; or  again  of  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.,  or 
Louis  XV.,  or  the  French  Revolution ; an  idea  more  or 
less  accurate  in  proportion  as  we  study,  but  probablv 
even  in  the  minds  who  know  these  ages  best  and  most 
minutely,  more  special,  more  simple,  more  unique  than 
the  truth  was.  We  throw  aside  too  much,  in  making 
up  our  images  of  eras,  that  which  is  common  to  all  eras. 
The  English  character  was  much  the  same  in  many 
great  respects  in  Chaucer’s  time  as  it  was  in  Elizabeth’s 
time  or  Anne’s  time,  or  as  it  is  now.  But  some  quali- 
ties were  added  to  this  common  element  in  one  era  and 
some  in  another ; some  qualities  seemed  to  overshadow 


32 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


and  eclipse  it  in  one  era,  and  others  in  another.  We 
overlook  and  half  forget  the  constant  while  we  see  and 
watch  the  variable.  But — for  that  is  the  present  point 
— why  is  there  this  variable?  Everyone  must,  I think, 
have  been  puzzled  about  it.  Suddenly,  in  a quiet  time 
— say,  in  Queen  Anne’s  time — arises  a special  literature, 
a marked  variety  of  human  expression,  pervading 
what  is  then  written  and  peculiar  to  it : surely  this  is 
singular. 

The  true  explanation  is,  I think,  something  like  this. 
One  considerable  writer  gets  a sort  of  start  because 
what  he  writes  is  somewhat  more — only  a little  more 
trery  often,  as  I believe — congenial  to  the  minds  around 
him  than  any  other  sort.  This  writer  is  very  often  not 
the  one  whom  posterity  remembers — not  the  one  who 
carries  the  style  of  the  age  farthest  towards  its  ideal 
type,  and  gives  it  its  charm  and  its  perfection.  It  was 
not  Addison  who  began  the  essay-writing  of  Queen 
Anne’s  time,  but  Steele;  it  was  the  vigorous  forward 
man  who  struck  out  the  rough  notion,  though  it  was 
the  wise  and  meditative  man  who  improved  upon  it  and 
elaborated  it,  and  whom  posterity  reads.  Some  strong 
writer,  or  group  of  writers,  thus  seize  on  the  public 
mind,  and  a curious  process  soon  assimilates  other 
writers  in  appearance  to  them.  To  some  extent,  no 
doubt,  this  assimilation  is  effected  by  a process  most 
intelligible,  and  not  at  all  curious — the  process  of  con- 
scious imitation;  A sees  that  B’s  style  of  writing 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE. 


33 


answers,  and  he  imitates  it.  But  definitely  aimed 
mimicry  like  this  is  always  rare  ; original  men  who  like 
their  own  thoughts  do  not  willingly  clothe  them  in 
words  they  feel  they  borrow.  No  man,  indeed,  can 
think  to  much  purpose  when  he  is  studying  to  write  a 
style  not  his  own.  After  all,  very  few  men  are  at  all 
equal  to  the  steady  labour,  the  stupid  and  mistaken 
labour  mostly,  of  making  a style.  Most  men  catch  the 
words  that  are  in  the  air,  and  the  rhythm  which  comes 
to  them  they  do  not  know  from  whence  ; an  unconscious 
imitation  determines  their  words,  and  makes  them  say 
what  of  themselves  they  would  never  have  thought  of 
saying.  Everyone  who  has  written  in  more  than  one 
newspaper  knows  how  invariably  his  style  catches  the 
tone  of  each  paper  while  he  is  writing  for  it,  and  changes 
to  the  tone  of  another  when  in  turn  lie  begins  to  write 
for  that.  He  probably  would  rather  write  the  traditional 
style  to  which  the  readers  of  the  journal  are  used,  but 
he  does  not  set  himself  to  copy  it ; he  would  have  to 
force  himself  in  order  not  to  write  it  if  that  was  what 
he  wanted.  Exactly  in  this  way,  just  as  a writer  for  a 
journal  wuthout  a distinctly  framed  purpose  gives  the 
readers  of  the  journal  the  sort  of  words  and  the  sort  of 
thoughts  they  are  used  to — so,  on  a larger  scale,  the 
writers  of  an  age,  without  thinking  of  it,  give  to  the 
readers  of  the  age  the  sort  of  words  and  the  sort  of 
.houghts — the  special  literature.  *n  fact — which  those 
Neaders  like  and  prize.  And  not  only  does  the  writer, 


34 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


without  thinking,  choose  the  sort  of  style  and  meaning 
which  are  most  in  vogue,  but  the  writer  is  himself 
chosen.  A.  writer  does  not  begin  to  write  in  the  tra- 
ditional rhythm  of  an  age  unless  he  feels,  or  fancies  he 
feels,  a sort  of  aptitude  for  writing  it,  any  more  than  a 
writer  tries  to  write  in  a journal  in  which  the  style  is 
uncongenial  or  impossible  to  him.  Indeed  if  he  mistakes 
he  is  soon  weeded  out ; the  editor  rejects,  the  age  will 
not  read  his  compositions.  How  painfully  this  tra- 
ditional style  cramps  great  writers  whom  it  happens  not 
to  suit,  is  curiously  seen  in  Wordsworth,  who  was  bold 
enough  to  break  through  it,  and,  at  the  risk  of  contem- 
porary neglect,  to  frame  a style  of  his  own.  But  he  did 
so  knowingly,  and  he  did  so  with  an  effort.  ‘ It  is  sup- 
posed/ he  says,  c that  by  the  act  of  writing  in  verse  an 
author  makes  a formal  engagement  that  he  will  gratify 
certain  known  habits  of  association;  that  he  not  only 
then  apprizes  the  reader  that  certain  classes  of  ideas 
and  expressions  will  be  found  in  his  book,  but  that 
others  will  be  carefully  eschewed.  The  exponent  or 
symbol  held  forth  by  metrical  language  must,  in  dif- 
ferent ages  of  literature,  have  excited  very  different 
expectations ; for  example,  in  the  age  of  Catullus, 
Terence,  or  Lucretius,  and  that  of  Statius  or  Claudian  ; 
and  in  our  own  country,  in  the  age  of  Shakespeare  and 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  and  that  of  Donne  and  Cowley, 
or  Pope/  And  then,  in  a kind  of  vexed  way,  Words- 
worth goes  on  to  explain  that  he  himself  can’t  and 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE. 


35 


won’t  do  what  is  expected  from  him,  but  that  he  will 
write  his  own  words,  and  only  his  own  words.  A.  strict, 
I was  going  to  say  a Puritan,  genius  will  act  thus,  but 
most' men  of  genius  are  susceptible  and  versatile,  and 
fall  into  the  style  of  their  age.  One  very  unapt  at  the 
assimilating  process,  but  on  that  account  the  more 
curious  about  it,  says  : — 

How  we 

Track  a livelong  day,  great  heaven,  and  watch  our  shadows ! 

What  our  shadows  seem,  forsooth,  we  will  ourselves  be. 

Do  I look  like  that  ? You  think  me  that : then  I am  that. 

What  writers  are  expected  to  write,  they  write ; or 
else  they  do  not  write  at  all ; but,  like  the  writer  of  these 
lines,  stop  discouraged,  live  disheartened,  and  die  leaving 
fragments  which  their  friends  treasure,  but  which  a 
rushing  world  never  heeds.  The  Nonconformist  writers 
are  neglected,  the  Conformist  writers  are  encouraged, 
until  perhaps  on  a sudden  the  fashion  shifts.  And  as 
with  the  writers,  so  in  a less  degree  with  readers. 
Many  men — most  men — get  to  like  or  think  they  like 
that  which  is  ever  before  them,  and  which  those  around 
them  like,  and  which  received  opinion  says  they  ought 
to  like;  or  if  their  minds  are  too  marked  and  oddly 
made  to  get  into  the  mould,  they  give  up  reading  alto- 
gether, or  read  old  books  and  foreign  books,  formed 
under  another  code  and  appealing  to  a different  taste. 
Tbe  principle  of  ‘ elimination,’  the  ‘use  and  disuse  5 of 
Drgans  which  naturalists  speak  of,  works  here.  What 


86 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


is  used  strengthens;  what  is  disused  weakens:  ‘to 
those  who  have,  more  is  given ; ’ and  so  a sort  of  style 
settles  upon  an  age,  and  imprinting  itself  more  than 
anything  else  in  men’s  memories  becomes  all  that  is 
thought  of  about  it. 

I believe  that  what  we  call  national  character  arose 
in  very  much  the  same  way.  At  first  a sort  of  ‘ chance 
predominance  ’ made  a model,  and  then  invincible  at- 
traction, the  necessity  which  rules  all  but  the  strongest 
men  to  imitate  what  is  before  their  eyes,  and  to  be  what 
they  are  expected  to  be,  moulded  men  by  that  model. 
This  is,  I think,  the  very  process  by  which  new  national 
characters  are  being  made  in  our  own  time.  In  America 
and  in  Australia  a new  modification  of  what  we  call 
Anglo- Saxonism  is  growing.  A sort  of  type  of  character 
arose  from  the  difficulties  of  colonial  life — the  difficulty 
of  struggling  with  the  wilderness ; and  this  type  has 
given  its  shape  to  the  mass  of  characters  because  the 
mass  of  characters  have  unconsciously  imitated  it. 
Many  of  the  American  characteristics  are  plainly  useful 
in  such  a life,  and  consequent  on  such  a life.  The 
eager  restlessness,  the  highly-strung  nervous  organisa- 
tion are  useful  in  continual  struggle,  and  also  are  pro- 
moted by  it.  These  traits  seem  to  be  arising  in 
Australia,  too,  and  wherever  else  the  English  race  is 
placed  in  like  circumstances.  But  even  in  these  useful 
particulars  the  innate  tendency  of  the  human  mind  to 
become  like  what  is  around  it,  has  effected  much  ; a 


THE  PKELIMIN  ARY  AGE. 


37 


sluggish  Englishman  will  often  catch  the  eager  Ameri- 
can look  in  a few  years ; an  Irishman  or  even  a German 
will  catch  it,  too,  even  in  all  English  particulars.  And 
as  to  a hundred  minor  points — in  so  many  that  go  to 
mark  the  typical  Yankee — usefulness  has  had  no  share 
either  in  their  origin  or  their  propagation.  The  acci- 
dent of  some  predominant  person  possessing  them  set 
the  fashion,  and  it  has  been  imitated  to  this  day. 
Anybody  who  inquires  will  find  even  m England,  and 
even  in  these  days  of  assimilation,  parish  peculiarities 
which  arose,  no  doubt,  from  some  old  accident,  and 
have  been  lieedfully  preserved  by  customary  copying. 
A national  character  is  but  the  successful  parish  cha- 
racter ; just  as  the  national  speech  is  but  the  successful 
parish  dialect,  the  dialect,  that  is,  of  the  district  which 
^ame  to  be  more — in  many  cases  but  a little  more — 
influential  than  other  districts,  and  so  set  its  yoke  on 
books  and  on  society. 

I could  enlarge  much  on  this,  for  I believe  this  un- 
conscious imitation  to  be  the  principal  force  in  the 
making  of  national  characters ; but  I have  already  said 
more  about  it  than  I need.  Everybody  who  weighs 
even  half  these  arguments  will  admit  that  it  is  a great 
force  in  the  matter,  a principal  agency  to  be  acknow- 
ledged and  watched ; and  for  my  present  purpose  I 
want  no  more.  I have  only  to  show  the  efficacy  of  the 
tight  early  polity  (so  to  speak)  and  the  strict  early  law 
on  the  creation  of  corporate  characters.  These  settled 


38 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


tlie  predominant  type,  set  np  a sort  of  model,  made  a 
sort  of  idol ; this  was  worshipped,  copied,  and  observed, 
from  all  manner  of  mingled  feelings,  but  most  of  all  be- 
cause it  was  the  6 thing  to  do/  the  then  accepted  form 
of  human  action.  When  once  the  predominant  type 
was  determined,  the  copying  propensity  of  man  did  the 
rest.  The  tradition  ascribing  Spartan  legislation  to 
Lycurgus  was  literally  untrue,  but  its  spirit  was  quite 
true.  In  the  origin  of  states  strong  and  eager  indi- 
viduals got  hold  of  small  knots  of  men,  and  made  for 
them  a fashion  which  they  were  attached  to  and  kept. 

It  is  only  after  duly  apprehending  the  silent  manner 
in  which  national  characters  thus  form  themselves,  that 
we  can  rightly  appreciate  the  dislike  which  old  Govern- 
ments had  to  trade.  There  must  have  been  something 
peculiar  about  it,  for  the  best  philosophers,  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  shared  it.  They  regarded  commerce  as  the 
source  of  corruption  as  naturally  as  a modern  economist 
•considers  it  the  spring  of  industry,  and  all  the  old 
Governments  acted  in  this  respect  upon  the  philosophers’ 
maxims.  c Well,’  said  Dr.  Arnold,  speaking  ironically 
and  in  the  spirit  of  modern  times — 6 Well,  indeed,  might 
the  policy  of  the  old  priest-nobles  of  Egypt  and  India 
endeavour  to  divert  their  people  from  becoming  familiar 
with  the  sea,  and  represent  the  occupation  of  a seaman 
as  incompatible  with  the  purity  of  the  highest  castes. 
The  sea  deserved  to  be  hated  by  the  old  aristocracies, 
inasmuch  as  it  has  been  the  mightiest  instrument  in  tb<» 


THE  PRELIMINARY  AGE. 


39 


civilisation  of  mankind/  But  the  old  oligarchies  had 
their  own  work,  as  we  now  know.  They  were  imposing 
a fashioning  yoke ; they  were  making  the  human 
nature  which  after  times  employ.  They  were  at  their 
labours,  we  have  entered  into  these  labours.  And  to 
the  unconscious  imitation  which  was  their  principal 
tool,  no  impediment  was  so  formidable  as  foreign  inter- 
course. Men  imitate  what  is  before  their  eyes,  if  it  is 
before  their  eyes  alone,  but  they  do  not  imitate  it  if  it  is 
only  one  among  many  present  things — one  competitor 
among  others,  all  of  which  are  equal  and  some  of  which 
seem  better.  4 Whoever  speaks  two  languages  is  a 
rascal,5  says  the  saying,  and  it  rightly  represents  the 
feeling  of  primitive  communities  when  the  sudden  im  ’ 
pact  of  new  thoughts  and  new  examples  breaks  down 
the  compact  despotism  of  the  single  consecrated  code, 
and  leaves  pliant  and  impressible  man — such  as  he  then 
is — to  follow  his  unpleasant  will  without  distinct 
guidance  by  hereditary  morality  and  hereditary  religion. 
The  old  oligarchies  wanted  to  keep  their  type  perfect, 
and  for  that  end  they  were  right  not  to  allow  foreigners 
to  touch  it. 

‘ Distinctions  of  race,5  says  Arnold  himself  elsewhere 
in  a remarkable  essay — for  it  was  his  last  on  Greek 
history,  his  farewell  words  on  a long  favourite  subject — * 
were  not  of  that  odious  and  fantastic  character  which 
they  have  been  in  modern  times  ; they  implied  real 
differences  of  the  most  important  kind,  religious  and 
4 


40 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


moral.’  And  after  exemplifying  this  at  length  he  goes 
on,  c It  is  not  then  to  be  wondered  at  that  Thucydides, 
when  speaking  of  a city  founded  jointly  by  Ionians  and 
Dorians,  should  have  thought  it  right  to  add  “ that  the 
prevailing  institutions  of  the  two  were  Ionian,”  for 
according  as  they  were  derived  from  one  or  the  other 
the  prevailing  type  would  be  different.  And  therefore 
the  mixture  of  persons  of  different  race  in  the  same 
commonwealth,  unless  one  race  had  a complete  ascen- 
dancy, tended  to  confuse  all  the  relations  of  human  life, 
and  all  men’s  notions  of  right  and  wrong  ; or  by  com- 
pelling men  to  tolerate  in  so  near  a relation  as  that  of 
fellow- citizens  differences  upon  the  main  points  of 
human  life,  led  to  a general  carelessness  and  scepticism, 
and  encouraged  the  notion  that  right  and  wrong  had 
no  real  existence,  but  were  mere  creatures  of  human 
opinion.’  But  if  this  be  so,  the  oligarchies  were  right. 
Commerce  brings  this  mingling  of  ideas,  this  breaking 
down  of  old  creeds,  and  brings  it  inevitably.  It  is  now- 
a-days  its  greatest  good  that  it  does  so  ; the  change  is 
what  we  call  c enlargement  of  mind.’  But  in  early 
times  Providence  c set  aparr  the  nations ; ’ and  it  is  not 
till  the  frame  of  their  morals  is  set  by  long  ages  of 
transmitted  discipline,  that  such  enlargement  can  be 
borne.  The  ages  of  isolation  had  their  use,  for  they 
trained  men  for  ages  when  they  were  not  to  be  iso- 
lated. 


No.  LI. 

THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 

‘ The  difference  between  progression  and  stationary  in- 
action/  says  one  of  our  greatest  living  writers,  c is  one 
of  the  great  secrets  which  science  has  yet  to  penetrate.’; 
I am  sure  I do  not  pretend  that  I can  completely  pene- 
trate it;  but  it  undoubtedly  seems  to  me  that  the 
problem  is  on  the  verge  of  solution,  and  that  scientific 
successes  in  kindred  fields  by  analogy  suggest  some 
principles  which  wholly  remove  many  of  its  difficulties, 
and  indicate  the  sort  of  way  in  which  those  which 
remain  may  hereafter  be  removed  too. 

But  what  is  the  problem  ? Common  English,  I might 
perhaps  say  common  civilised  thought,  ignores  it. 
Our  habitual  instructors,  our  ordinary  conversation,  our 
inevitable  and  ineradicable  prejudices  tend  to  make  us 
think  that  c Progress 5 is  the  normal  fact  in  human 
society,  the  fact  which  we  should  expect  to  see,  the 
fact  which  we  should  be  surprised  if  we  did  not  see. 
But  history  refutes  this.  The  ancients  had  no  concep- 
tion of  progress ; they  did  not  so  much  as  reject  the 
idea ; they  did  not  even  entertain  the  idea.  Oriental 


42 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


nations  are  just  the  same  now.  Since  history  began 
they  have  always  been  what  they  are.  Savages, 
again,  do  not  improve ; they  hardly  seem  to  have  the 
basis  on  which  to  build,  much  less  the  material  to  put 
up  anything  worth  having.  Only  a few  nations,  and 
those  of  European  origin,  advance ; and  yet  these  think 
— seem  irresistibly  compelled  to  think — such  advance 
to  be  inevitable,  natural,  and  eternal.  Why  then  is 
this  great  contrast  ? 

Before  we  can  answer,  we  must  investigate  more 
accurately.  No  doubt  history  shows  that  most  nations 
are  stationary  now  ; but  it  affords  reason  to  think  that 
all  nations  once  advanced.  Their  progress  was  arrested 
at  various  points ; but  nowhere,  probably  not  even  in 
the  hill  tribes  of  India,  not  even  in  the  Andaman 
Islanders,  not  even  in  the  savages  of  Terra  del  Fuego, 
do  we  find  men  who  have  not  got  some  way.  They 
have  made  their  little  progress  in  a hundred  different 
ways ; they  have  framed  with  infinite  assiduity  a 
hundred  curious  habits ; they  have,  so  to  say,  screwed 
themselves  into  the  uncomfortable  corners  of  a complex 
life,  which  is  odd  and  dreary,  but  yet  is  possible.  And 
the  corners  are  never  the  same  in  any  two  parts  of  the 
world.  Our  record  begins  with  a thousand  unchanging 
edifices,  but  it  shows  traces  of  previous  building.  In 
historic  times  there  has  been  little  progress ; in  pre- 
historic times  there  must  have  been  much. 

In  solving,  or  trying  to  solve,  the  question,  we  must 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


43 


take  notice  of  tliis  remarkable  difference,  and  explain 
it,  too,  or  else  we  may  be  sure  our  principles  are  utterly 
incomplete,  and  perhaps  altogether  unsound.  But  what 
then  is  that  solution,  or  what  are  the  principles  which 
tend  towards  it  ? Three  laws,  or  approximate  laws, 
may,  I think,  be  laid  down,  with  only  one  of  which  I 
can  deal  in  this  paper,  but  all  three  of  which  it  will  be 
best  to  state,  that  it  may  be  seen  what  I am  aiming 
at. 

First.  In  every  particular  state  of  the  world,  those 
nations  which  are  strongest  tend  to  prevail  over  the 
others ; and  in  certain  marked  peculiarities  the  strongest 
tend  to  be  the  best. 

Secondly.  Within  every  particular  nation  the  type  or 
types  of  character  then  and  there  most  attractive  tend 
to  prevail ; and  the  most  attractive,  though  with  ex- 
ceptions, is  what  we  call  the  best  character. 

Thirdly.  Neither  of  these  competitions  is  in  most 
historic  conditions  intensified  by  extrinsic  forces,  but 
in  some  conditions,  such  as  those  now  prevailing  in  the 
most  influential  part  of  the  world,  both  are  so  intensi- 
fied. 

These  are  the  sort  of  doctrines  with  which,  under 
the  name  of  ‘ natural  selection  ’ in  physical  science,  we 
have  become  familiar ; and  as  every  great  scientific 
conception  tends  to  advance  its  boundaries  and  to  be  of 
use  in  solving  problems  not  thought  of  when  it  was 
started,  so  here,  what  was  put  forward  for  mere  animal 


44 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


history  may,  with  a change  of  form,  but  an  identical 
essence,  be  applied  to  human  history. 

At  first  some  objection  was  raised  to  the  principle  of 
‘ natural  selection  ? in  physical  science  upon  religious 
grounds ; it  was  to  be  expected  that  so  active  an  idea 
and  so  large  a shifting  of  thought  would  seem  to  im- 
peril much  which  men  valued.  But  in  this,  as  in  other 
cases,  the  objection  is,  I think,  passing  away  ; the  new 
principle  is  more  and  more  seen  to  be  fatal  to  mere  out- 
works of  religion,  not  to  religion  itself.  At  all  events, 
to  the  sort  of  application  here  made  of  it,  which  only 
amounts  to  searching  out  and  following  up  an  analogy 
suggested  by  it,  there  is  plainly  no  objection.  Every- 
one now  admits  that  human  history  is  guided  by  certain 
laws,  and  all  that  is  here  aimed  at  is  to  indicate,  in  a 
more  or  less  distinct  way,  an  infinitesimally  small 
portion  of  such  laws. 

The  discussion  of  these  three  principles  cannot  be 
kept  quite  apart  except  by  pedantry ; but  it  is  almost 
exclusively  with  the  first — that  of  the  competition 
between  nation  and  nation,  or  tribe  and  tribe  (for  I 
must  use  these  words  in  their  largest  sense,  and  so  as 
to  include  every  cohering  aggregate  of  human  beings) 
— that  I can  deal  now  ; and  even  as  to  that  I can  but 
set  down  a few  principal  considerations. 

The  progress  of  the  military  art  is  the  most  con- 
spicuous, I was  about  to  say  the  most  showy , fact  in 
Human  history.  Ancient  civilisation  may  be  compared 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


45 


with  modern  in  many  respects,  and  plausible  arguments 
constructed  to  show  that  it  is  better ; but  you  cannot 
compare  the  two  in  military  power.  Napoleon  could 
indisputably  have  conquered  Alexander ; our  Indian 
army  would  not  think  much  of  the  Retreat  of  the  Ten 
Thousand.  And  I suppose  the  improvement  has  been 
continuous  : I have  not  the  slightest  pretence  to  special 
knowledge  ; but,  looking  at  the  mere  surface  of  the 
facts,  it  seems  likely  that  the  aggregate  battle  array,  so 
to  say,  of  mankind,  the  fighting  force  of  the  human 
race,  has  constantly  and  invariably  grown.  It  is  true 
that  the  ancient  civilisation  long  resisted  the  ‘ barba- 
lians,5  and  was  then  destroyed  by  the  barbarians.  But 
the  barbarians  had  improved.  6 By  degrees,5  says  a 
most  accomplished  writer,1 6 barbarian  mercenaries  came 
to  form  the  largest,  or  at  least  the  most  effective,  part 
of  the  Roman  armies.  The  body-guard  of  Augustus 
had  been  so  composed ; the  praetorians  were  generally 
selected  from  the  bravest  frontier  troops,  most  ot 
them  Germans.5  6 Thus,5  he  continues,  6 in  many 
ways  was  the  old  antagonism  broken  down,  Romans 
admitting  barbarians  to  rank  and  office ; barbarians 
catching  something  of  the  manners  and  culture  of  their 
neighbours.  And  thus,  when  the  final  movement  came, 
the  Teutonic  tribes  slowly  established  themselves 
through  the  provinces,  knowing  something  of  the 
system  to  which  they  came,  and  not  unwilling  to  be 


Mr.  Bryce. 


46 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


considered  its  members.5  Taking  friend  and  foe  to- 
gether, it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  fighting  capacity 
of  the  two  armies  was  not  as  great  at  last,  when  the 
Empire  fell,  as  ever  it  was  in  the  long  period  while  the 
Empire  prevailed.  During  the  Middle  Ages  the  com- 
bining power  of  men  often  failed ; in  a divided  time 
you  cannot  collect  as  many  soldiers  as  in  a concen- 
trated time.  But  this  difficulty  is  political,  not  military. 
If  you  added  up  the  many  little  hosts  of  any  century  of 
separation,  they  would  perhaps  be  found  equal  or 
greater  than  the  single  host,  or  the  fewer  hosts,  of 
previous  centuries  which  were  more  united.  Taken  as 
a whole,  and  allowing  for  possible  exceptions,  the 
aggregate  fighting  power  of  mankind  has  grown  im- 
mensely, and  has  been  growing  continuously  since  we 
knew  anything  about  it. 

Again,  this  force  has  tended  to  concentrate  itself 
more  and  more  in  certain  groups  which  we  call 
‘ civilised  nations.5  The  literati  of  the  last  century 
were  for  ever  in  fear  of  a new  conquest  of  the  barba- 
rians, but  only  because  their  imagination  was  over- 
shadowed and  frightened  by  the  old  conquests.  A very 
little  consideration  would  have  shown  them  that,  since 
the  monopoly  of  military  inventions  by  cultivated  states, 
real  and  effective  military  power  tends  to  confine  itself 
to  those  states.  The  barbarians  are  no  longer  so  much 
as  vanquished  competitors  ; they  have  ceased  to  com- 
pete at  all. 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


47 


Tlie  military  vices,  too,  of  civilisation  seem  to  decline 
last  as  its  military  strength  augments.  Somehow  or 
other  civilisation  does  not  make  men  effeminate  or  un- 
warlike now  as  it  once  did.  There  is  an  improvement 
in  onr  fibre — moral,  if  not  physical.  In  ancient  times 
city  people  could  not  be  got  to  fight — seemingly  could 
not  fight ; they  lost  their  mental  courage,  perhaps  their 
bodily  nerve.  But  now-a-days  in  all  countries  the  great 
cities  could  pour  out  multitudes  wanting  nothing  but 
practice  to  make  good  soldiers,  and  abounding  in 
bravery  and  vigour.  This  was  so  in  America ; it  was 
so  in  Prussia ; and  it  would  be  so  in  England  too.  The 
breed  of  ancient  times  was  impaired  for  war  by  trade 
and  luxury,  but  the  modern  breed  is  not  so  impaired. 

A curious  fact  indicates  the  same  thing  probably,  it 
not  certainly.  Savages  waste  away  before  modern 
civilisation ; they  seem  to  have  held  their  ground  be- 
fore the  ancient.  There  is  no  lament  in  any  classical 
writer  for  the  barbarians.  The  New  Zealanders  say 
that  the  land  will  depart  from  their  children ; the 
Australians  are  vanishing ; the  Tasmanians  have  van- 
ished. If  anything  like  this  had  happened  in  antiquity, 
the  classical  moralists  would  have  been  sure  to  muse 
over  it;  for  it  is  just  the  large  solemn  kind  of  fact  that 
suited  them.  On  the  contrary,  in  Gaul,  in  Spain,  in 
Sicily — everywhere  that  we  know  of — the  barbarian 
endured  the  contact  of  the  Roman,  and  the  Roman  allied 
himself  to  the  barbarian.  Modern  science  explains  the 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


18 

wasting  away  of  savage  men;  it  says  that  we  have 
diseases  which  we  can  bear,  though  they  cannot,  and 
that  they  die  away  before  them  as  our  fatted  and  pro- 
tected cattle  died  out  before  the  rinderpest,  which  is 
innocuous,  in  comparison,  to  the  hardy  cattle  of  the 
Steppes.  Savages  in  the  first  year  of  the  Christian  era 
were  pretty  much  what  they  were  in  the  1800th ; and 
if  they  stood  the  contact  of  ancient  civilised  men,  and. 
cannot  stand  ours,  it  follows  that  our  race  is  presumably 
tougher  than  the  ancient ; for  we  have  to  bear,  and  do 
bear,  the  seeds  oi  greater  diseases  than  those  the 
ancients  carried  with  them.  We  may  use,  perhaps,  the 
unvarying  savage  as  a metre  to  gauge  the  vigour  of  the 
constitutions  to  whose  contact  he  is  exposed. 

Particular  consequences  may  be  dubious,  but  as  to 
the  main  fact  there  is  no  doubt : the  military  strength 
of  man  has  been  growing  from  the  earliest  time  known 
our  history,  straight  on  till  now.  And  we  must  not 
*Ook  at  times  known  by  written  records  only ; we  must 
travel  back  to  older  ages,  known  to  us  only  by  what 
lawyers  call  real  evidence — the  evidence  of  things.  Be- 
fore history  began,  there  was  at  least  as  much  progress 
in  the  military  art  as  there  has  been  since.  The 
Roman  legionaries  or  Homeric  Greeks  were  about  as 
superior  to  the  men  of  the  shell  mounds  and  the  flint 
implements  as  we  are  superior  to  them.  There  has 
been  a constant  acquisition  of  military  strength  by  man 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


49 


since  we  know  anything  of  him,  either  by  the  documents 
he  has  composed  or  the  indications  he  has  left. 

The  cause  of  this  military  growth  is  very  plain.  The 
strongest  nation  has  always  been  conquering  the 
weaker;  sometimes  even  subduing  it,  but  always  pre- 
vailing over  it.  Every  intellectual  gain,  so  to  speak, 
that  a nation  possessed  was  in  the  earliest  times  made 
use  of — was  invested  and  taken  out — in  war ; all  else 
perished.  Each  nation  tried  constantly  to  be  the 
stronger,  and  so  made  or  copied  the  best  weapons ; by 
conscious  and  unconscious  imitation  each  nation  formed 
a type  of  character  suitable  to  war  and  conquest.  Con- 
quest improved  mankind  by  the  intermixture  of 
strengths ; the  armed  truce,  which  was  then  called 
peace,  improved  them  by  the  competition  of  training 
and  the  consequent  creation  of  new  power.  Since  the 
long-headed  men  first  drove  the  short-headed  men  out 
of  the  best  land  in  Europe,  all  European  history  has 
been  the  history  of  the  superposition  of  the  more 
military  races  over  the  less  military — of  the  efforts, 
sometimes  successful,  sometimes  unsuccessful,  of  each 
race  to  get  more  military ; and  so  the  art  of  war  has 
constantly  improved. 

But  why  is  one  nation  stronger  than  another  ? In 
the  answer  to  that,  I believe,  lies  the  key  to  the  prin- 
cipal progress  of  early  civilisation,  and  to  some  of  the 
progress  of  all  civilisation.  The  answer  is  that  there 
are  very  many  advantages — some  small  and  some  great 


50 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


• — every  one  of  which  tends  to  make  the  nation  which 
has  it  superior  to  the  nation  which  has  it  not ; that 
many  of  these  advantages  can  be  imparted  to  subjugated 
races,  or  imitated  by  competing  races  ; and  that,  though 
some  of  these  advantages  may  be  perishable  or  inimit- 
able, yet,  on  the  whole,  the  energy  of  civilisation  grows 
by  the  coalescence  of  strengths  and  by  the  competition 
of  strengths. 

II. 

By  far  the  greatest  advantage  is  that  on  which  I 
observed  before  — that  to  which  I drew  all  the  attention 
I was  able  by  making  the  first  of  these  essays  an  essay 
on  the  Preliminary  Age.  The  first  thing  to  acquire  is, 
if  I may  so  express  it,  the  legal  fibre  ; a polity  first— 
what  sort  of  polity  is  immaterial ; a law  first — what 
kind  of  law  i£  secondary  ; a person  or  set  of  persons  to 
pay  deference  to  — though  who  he  is,  or  they  are,  by 
comparison  scarcely  signifies. 

c There  is,5  it  has  been  said,  ‘ hardly  any  exaggerating 
the  difference  between  civilised  and  uncivilised  men  ; it 
is  greater  than  the  difference  between  a tame  and  a 
wild  animal,5  because  man  can  improve  more.  But  the 
difference  at  first  was  gained  in  much  the  same  way.  The 
taming  of  animals  as  it  now  goes  on  among  savage 
nations,  and  as  travellers  wTho  have  seen  it  describe  it, 
is  a kind  of  selection.  The  most  wild  are  killed  when 
food  is  wanted,  and  the  most  tame  and  easy  to  manage 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


51 


Kept,  because  they  are  more  agreeable  to  human  indo- 
lence, and  so  the  keeper  likes  them  best.  Captain 
Galton,  who  has  often  seen  strange  scenes  of  savage 
and  of  animal  life,  had  better  describe  the  process : — 
4 The  irreclaimably  wild  members  of  every  flock  would 
escape  and  be  utterly  lost ; the  wilder  of  those  that 
remained  would  assuredly  be  selected  for  slaughter 
whenever  it  was  necessary  that  one  of  the  flock  should 
be  killed.  The  tamest  cattle — those  which  seldom  ran 
away,  that  kept  the  flocks  together,  and  those  which 
led  them  homeward — would  be  preserved  alive  longer 
than  any  of  the  others.  It  is,  therefore,  these  that 
chiefly  become  the  parents  of  stock  and  bequeath  their 
domestic  aptitudes  to  the  future  herd.  I have  con- 
stantly witnessed  this  process  of  selection  among  the 
pastoral  savages  of  South  Africa.  I believe  it  to  be  a 
very  important  one  on  account  of  its  rigour  and  its 
regularity.  It  must  have  existed  from  the  earliest 
times,  and  have  been  in  continuous  operation,  genera- 
tion after  generation,  down  to  the  present  day.51 

Man,  being  the  strongest  of  all  animals,  differs  from 
the  rest ; he  was  obliged  to  be  his  own  domesticator ; 
he  had  to  tame  himself.  And  the  way  in  which  it 
happened  was,  that  the  most  obedient,  the  tamest  tribes 
are,  at  the  first  stage  in  the  real  struggle  of  life,  the 
strongest  and  the  conquerors.  All  are  very  wild  then  ; 
the  animal  vigour,  the  savage  virtue  of  the  race  has 
1 Ethnological  Society’s  Transactions,  vol.  iii.  p.  137. 


52 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


died  out  in  none,  and  all  have  enough  of  it.  But  what 
makes  one  tribe — one  incipient  tribe,  one  bit  of  a tribe 
— to  differ  from  another  is  their  relative  faculty  of 
coherence.  The  slightest  symptom  of  legal  develop- 
ment, the  least  indication  of  a military  bond,  is  then 
enough  to  turn  the  scale.  The  compact  tribes  win,  and 
the  compact  tribes  are  the  tamest.  Civilisation  begins, 
because  the  beginning  of  civilisation  is  a military  ad- 
vantage. 

Probably  if  we  had  historic  records  of  the  ante-his 
toric  ages — if  some  superhuman  power  had  set  down 
the  thoughts  and  actions  of  men  ages  before  they  could 
set  them  down  for  themselves — we  should  know  that 
this  first  step  in  civilisation  was  the  hardest  step.  But 
when  we  come  to  history  as  it  is,  we  are  more  struck 
with  the  difficulty  of  the  next  step.  All  the  absolutely 
incoherent  men— all  the  c Cyclopes  5 — have  been  cleared 
away  long  before  there  was  an  authentic  account  of 
them.  And  the  least  coherent  only  remain  in  the 
6 protected  5 parts  of  the  world,  as  we  may  call  them. 
Ordinary  civilisation  begins  near  the  Mediterranean 
Sea ; the  best,  doubtless,  of  the  ante-historic  civilisa^- 
tions  were  not  far  off.  From  this  centre  the  conquering 
swarm—  for  such  it  is — has  grown  and  grown;  has 
widened  its  subject  territories  steadily,  though  not 
equably,  age  by  age.  But  geography  long  defied  it. 
An  Atlantic  Ocean,  a Pacific  Ocean,  an  Australian 
Ocean,  an  unapproachable  interior  Africa,  a.*1  inac- 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


53 


cessible  and  undesirable  hill  India,  were  beyond  its 
range.  In  such  remote  places  there  was  no  real  com- 
petition, and  on  them  inferior  half-combined  men 
continued  to  exist.  But  in  the  regions  of  rivalry — the 
regions  where  the  better  man  pressed  upon  the  worse 
man — such  half-made  associations  could  not  last.  They 
died  out,  and  history  did  not  begin  till  after  they  were 
gone.  The  great  difficulty  which  history  records  is  not 
that  of  the  first  step,  but  that  of  the  second  step.  What 
is  most  evident  is  not  the  difficulty  of  getting  a fixed 
law,  but  getting  out  of  a fixed  law ; not  of  cementing 
(as  upon  a former  occasion  I phrased  it)  a cake  of  custom, 
but  of  breaking  the  cake  of  custom ; not  of  making  the 
first  preservative  habit,  but  of  breaking  through  it,  and 
reaching  something  better. 

This  is  the  precise  case  with  the  whole  family  of 
arrested  civilisations.  A large  part,  a very  large  part, 
of  the  world  seems  to  be  ready  to  advance  to  something 
good — to  have  prepared  all  the  means  to  advance  to 
something  good, — and  then  to  have  stopped,  and  not 
advanced.  India,  Japan,  China,  almost  every  sort  of 
Oriental  civilisation,  though  differing  in  nearly  all  other 
things,  are  in  this  alike.  They  look  as  if  they  had 
paused  when  there  was  no  reason  for  pausing — when  a 
mere  observer  from  without  would  say  they  were  likely 
not  to  pause. 

The  reason  is,  that  only  those  nations  can  progress 
which  preserve  and  use  the  fundamental  peculiarity 


54 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


which  was  given  by  nature  to  man’s  organism  as  to  all 
other  organisms.  By  a law  of  which  we  know  no 
reason,  but  which  is  among  the  first  by  which  Pro- 
vidence guides  and  governs  the  world*  there  is  a ten- 
dency in  descendants  to  be  like  their  progenitors,  and 
yet  a tendency  also  in  descendants  to  differ  from  their 
progenitors.  The  work  of  nature  in  making  generations 
is  a patchwork — part  resemblance,  part  contrast.  In 
certain  respects  each  born  generation  is  not  like  the 
last  born  ; and  in  certain  other  respects  it  is  like  the 
last.  But  the  peculiarity  of  arrested  civilisation  is  to 
kill  out  varieties  at  birth  almost ; that  is,  in  early 
childhood,  and  before  they  can  develop.  The  fixed 
custom  which  public  opinion  alone  tolerates  is  imposed 
on  all  minds,  whether  it  suits  them  or  not.  In  that 
case  the  community  feel  that  this  custom  is  the  only 
shelter  from  bare  tyranny,  and  the  only  security  for 
what  they  value.  Most  Oriental  communities  live  on 
land  which  in  theory  is  the  property  of  a despotic 
sovereign,  and  neither  they  nor  their  families  could 
have  the  elements  of  decent  existence  unless  they  held 
the  land  upon  some  sort  of  fixed  terms.  Land  in  that 
state  of  society  is  (for  all  but  a petty  skilled  minority)  a 
necessary  of  life,  and  all  the  unincreasable  land  being 
occupied,  a man  who  is  turned  out  of  his  holding  is 
turned  out  of  this  world,  and  must  die.  And  our  notion 
of  written  leases  is  as  out  of  place  in  a world  without 
writing  and  without  reading  as  a House  of  Commons 


THE  USE  OE  CONFLICT. 


55 


among  Andaman  Islanders.  Only  one  check,  one  sole 
shield  for  life  and  good,  is  then  possible  ; — usage.  And 
it  is  but  too  plain  how  in  such  places  and  periods  men 
cling  to  customs  because  customs  alone  stand  between 
them  and  starvation. 

A still  more  powerful  cause  co-operated,  if  a cause 
more  powerful  can  be  imagined.  Dryden  had  a dream 
of  an  early  age,  6 when  wild  in  woods  the  noble  savage 
ran;5  but  ‘ when  lone  in  woods  the  cringing  savage 
crept  ’ would  have  been  more  like  all  we  know  of  that 
early,  bare,  painful  period.  Not  only  had  they  no 
comfort,  no  convenience,  not  the  very  beginnings  of  an 
epicurean  life,  but  their  mind  within  was  as  painful  to 
them  as  the  world  without.  It  was  full  of  fear.  So 
far  as  the  vestiges  inform  us,  they  were  afraid  of  every- 
thing ; they  were  afraid  of  animals,  of  certain  attacks 
by  near  tribes,  and  of  possible  inroads  from  far  tribes. 
Bat,  above  all  things,  they  were  frightened  of  4 the 
world;5  the  spectacle  of  nature  filled  them  with  awe 
and  dread.  They  fancied  there  were  powers  behind  it 
which  must  be  pleased,  soothed,  flattered,  and  this  very 
often  in  a number  of  hideous  ways.  We  have  too 
many  such  religions,  even  among  races  of  great  culti- 
vation. Men  change  their  religions  more  slowly  than 
they  change  anything  else  ; and  accordingly  we  have 
religions  c of  the  ages  5 — (it  is  Mr.  Jowett  who  so  calls 
them) — of  the  ‘ ages  before  morality ; 5 of  ages  of  which 
the  civil  life,  the  common  maxims,  and  all  the  secular 


5G 


PI] Y SICS  AND  POLITICS. 


thoughts  have  long  been  dead.  ‘ Every  reader  of  the 
classics/  said  Dr.  Johnson,  ‘ finds  their  mythology 
tedious.5  In  that  old  world,  which  is  so  like  our 
modern  world  in  so  many  things,  so  much  more  like 
than  many  far  more  recent,  or  some  that  live  beside  ns, 
there  is  a part  in  which  we  seem  to  have  no  kindred, 
which  we  stare  at,  of  which  we  cannot  think  how  it 
could  be  credible,  or  how  it  came  to  be  thought  of. 
This  is  the  archaic  part  of  that  very  world  which  we 
look  at  as  so  ancient;  an  6 antiquity  5 which  descended 
to  them,  hardly  altered,  perhaps,  from  times  long 
antecedent,  which  were  as  unintelligible  to  them  as  to 
us,  or  more  so.  How  this  terrible  religion — for  such  it 
was  in  all  living  detail,  though  we  make,  and  the 
ancients  then  made,  an  artistic  use  of  the  more  attrac- 
tive bits  of  it — weighed  on  man,  the  great  poem  of 
Lucretius,  the  most  of  a nineteenth-century  poem  of 
any  in  antiquity,  brings  before  us  with  a feeling  so 
vivid  as  to  be  almost  a feeling  of  our  own.  Yet  the 
classical  religion  is  a mild  and  tender  specimen  of  the 
preserved  religions.  To  get  at  the  worst,  you  should 
look  where  the  destroying  competition  has  been  least 
- — at  America,  where  sectional  civilisation  was  rare, 
and  a pervading  coercive  civilisation  did  not  exist ; at 
such  religions  as  those  of  the  Aztecs. 

At  first  sight  it  seems  impossible  to  imagine  what 
conceivable  function  such  awful  religions  can  perform 
in  the  economy  of  the  world.  And  no  one  can  fully 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


57 


explain  them.  But  one  use  they  assuredly  had  : they 
fixed  the  yoke  of  custom  thoroughly  on  mankind. 
They  were  the  prime  agents  of  the  era.  They  put 
upon  a fixed  law  a sanction  so  fearful  that  no  one  could 
dream  of  not  conforming  to  it. 

No  one  will  ever  comprehend  the  arrested  civilisa- 
tions unless  he  sees  the  strict  dilemma  of  early  society. 
Either  men  had  no  law  at  all,  and  lived  in  confused 
tribes,  hardly  hanging  together,  or  they  had  to  obtain 
a fixed  law  by  processes  of  incredible  difficulty.  Those 
who  surmounted  that  difficulty  soon  destroyed  all  those 
that  lay  in  their  way  who  did  not.  And  then  they 
themselves  were  caught  in  their  own  yoke.  The  custo- 
mary discipline,  which  could  only  be  imposed  on  any 
early  men  by  terrible  sanctions,  continued  with  those 
sanctions,  and  killed  out  of  the  whole  society  the 
propensities  to  variation  which  are  the  principle  of 
progress. 

Experience  shows  how  incredibly  difficult  it  is  to 
get  men  really  to  encourage  the  principle  of  originality. 
They  will  admit  it  in  theory,  but  in  practice  the  old 
error — the  error  which  arrested  a hundred  civilisations 
— returns  again.  Men  are  too  fond  of  their  own  life, 
too  credulous  of  the  completeness  of  their  own  ideas, 
too  angry  at  the  pain  of  new  thoughts,  to  be  able  to 
bear  easily  with  a changing  existence  ; or  else,  having 
new  ideas,  they  want  to  enforce  them  on  mankind — to 
make  them  heard,  and  admitted,  and  obeyed  before,  in 


5S 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


simple  competition  with  other  ideas,  they  would  ever 
be  so  naturally.  At  this  very  moment  there  are  the 
most  rigid  Comtists  teaching  that  we  ought  to  be 
governed  by  a hierarchy — a combination  of  savans  ortho- 
dox in  science.  Yet  who  can  doubt  that  Comte  would 
have  been  hanged  by  his  own  hierarchy ; that  his  essor 
materiel , which  was  in  fact  troubled  by  the  6 theologians 
and  metaphysicians  9 of  the  Polytechnic  School,  would 
have  been  more  impeded  by  the  government  he  wanted 
to  make  ? And  then  the  secular  Comtists,  Mr.  Har- 
rison and  Mr.  Beesly,  who  want  to  c Frenchify  the 
English  institutions  ? — that  is,  to  introduce  here  an 
imitation  of  the  Napoleonic  system,  a dictatorship  * 
founded  on  the  proletariat — who  can  doubt  that  if  both 
these  clever  writers  had  been  real  Frenchmen  they 
would  have  been  irascible  anti-Bonapartists,  and  have 
been  sent  to  Cayenne  long  ere  now?  The  wish  of 
these  writers  is  very  natural.  They  want  to  6 organise 
society/  to  erect  a despot  who  will  do  what  they  like, 
and  work  out  their  ideas  ; but  any  despot  will  do  what 
he  himself  likes,  and  will  root  out  new  ideas  ninety-nine 
times  for  once  that  he  introduces  them. 

Again,  side  by  side  wTith  these  Comtists,  and  warring 
with  them — at  least  with  one  of  them — is  Mr.  Arnold, 
whose  poems  wre  know  by  heart,  and  who  has,  as  much 
as  any  living  Englishman,  the  genuine  literary  impulse  ; 
and  yet  even  he  wants  to  put  a yoke  upon  us — and, 
worse  than  a political  yoke,  an  academic  yoke,  a yoke 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


upon  our  minds  and  our  styles.  He,  too,  asks  us  to 
imitate  France  ; and  what  else  can  we  say  than  what 
the  two  most  thorough  Frenchmen  of  the  last  age  did 
say  ? — c Dans  les  corps  a talent,  nulle  distinction  ne 
fait  ombrage,  si  ce  n’est  pas  celle  du  talent.  Un  due 
et  pair  honore  l’Acadeinie  Fran^aise,  qui  ne  veut  point 
de  Boileau,  refuse  la  Bruy  ere,  fait  attendre  Voltaire, 
mais  re9oit  tout  d’abord  Chapelain  et  Conrart.  De 
meme  nous  voyons  a l’Academie  Grecque  le  vicomte 
invite,  Corai  repousse,  lorsque  Jorinard  y entre  com  me 
dans  un  moulin.’  Thus  speaks  Paul-Louis  Courier  in 
his  own  brief  inimitable  prose.  And  a still  greater  writer 
— a real  Frenchman,  if  ever  there  was  one,  and  (what 
many  critics  would  have  denied  to  be  possible)  a great 
poet  by  reason  of  his  most  French  characteristics  — 
Beranger,  tells  us  in  verse  : — 

Je  croyais  voir  le  president 
Faire  b&iller—  en  r^pondant 
Que  l’on  vient  de  perdre  un  grand  homme ; 

Que  moi  je  le  vaux,  Dieu  sait  corarae. 

Mais  ce  president  sans  fatjon 1 
Ne  perore  ici  qu’en  chanson  : 

Toujours  trop  tot  sa  harangue  est  finie. 

Non,  non,  ce  n’est.  point  comme  a 1’ Academic, 

Ce  n’est  point  comme  a l’Academie. 

Admis  enfin,  aurai-je  alors, 

Pour  tout  esprit,  l’esprit  de  corps? 

II  rend  le  bon  sens,  quoi  qu’on  disc, 

Solidaire  de  la  sottise; 


Desaugiers. 


60 


PHYSIOS  AND  POLITICS. 


Mais,  dans  votre  soei&A, 

L’esprit  de  corps,  c’est  la  gaitA 
Cet  esprit  la  r&gne  sans  tyrannie. 

Non,  non,  ce  n’est  point  comme  a l’Academie ; 

Ce  n’est  point  comme  a l’Academie. 

Asylums  of  common-place,  he  hints,  academies  must 
ever  be.  But  that  sentence  is  too  harsh  ; the  true  one 
is — the  academies  are  asylums  of  the  ideas  and  the 
tastes  of  the  last  age.  ‘ By  the  time,5  I have  heard  a 
most  eminent  man  of  science  observe.  6 bv  the  time  a 
man  of  science  attains  eminence  on  any  subject,  he 
becomes  a nuisance  upon  it,  because  he  is  sure  to  retain 
errors  which  were  in  vogue  when  he  was  young,  but 
which  the  new  race  have  refuted.5  These  are  the  sort 
of  ideas  which  find  their  home  in  academies,  and  out 
of  their  dignified  windows  pooh-pooh  new  things. 

I may  seern  to  have  wandered  far  from  early  society, 
but  I have  not  wandered.  The  true  scientific  method 
is  to  explain  the  past  by  the  present — what  we  see  by 
what  we  do  not  see.  We  can  only  comprehend  why  so 
many  nations  have  not  varied,  when  we  see  how 
hateful  variation  is ; how  everybody  turns  against  it ; 
how  not  only  the  conservatives  of  speculation  try  to 
root  it  out,  but  the  very  innovators  invent  most  rigid 
machines  for  crushing  the  ‘ monstrosities  and  anoma- 
lies 5 — the  new  forms,  out  of  which,  by  competition  and 
trial,  the  best  is  to  be  selected  for  the  future.  The 
point  ] am  bringing  out  is  simple : — one  most  impor- 
tant pre-requisite  of  a prevailing  nation  is  that  it 


THE  USE  OE  CONFLICT. 


61 


should  have  passed  out  of  the  first  stage  of  civilisation 
into  the  second  stage — out  of  the  stage  where  perma- 
nence is  most  wanted  into  that  where  variability  is 
most  wanted ; and  you  cannot  comprehend  why  pro- 
gress is  so  slow  till  you  see  how  hard  the  most  obsti- 
nate tendencies  of  human  nature  make  that  step  to 
mankind. 

Of  course  the  nation  we  are  supposing  must  keep  the 
virtues  of  its  first  stage  as  it  passes  into  the  after  stage, 
else  it  will  be  trodden  out ; it  will  have  lost  the  savage 
virtues  in  getting  the  beginning  of  the  civilised  virtues ; 
and  the  savage  virtues  which  tend  to  war  are  the  daily 
bread  of  human  nature.  Carlyle  said,  in  his  graphic 
way,  4 The  ultimate  question  between  every  two  human 
beings  is,  “ Can  I kill  thee,  or  canst  thou  kill  me?  ” 5 
History  is  strewn  with  the  wrecks  of  nations  Avhich 
have  gained  a little  progressiveness  at  the  cost  of  a 
great  deal  of  hard  manliness,  and  have  thus  prepared 
themselves  for  destruction  as  soon  as  the  movements  of 
the  world  gave  a chance  for  it.  But  these  nations  have 
come  out  of  the  ‘ pre-economic  stage  ? too  soon ; they 
have  been  put  to  learn  while  yet  only  too  apt  to  un- 
learn. Such  cases  do  not  vitiate,  they  confirm,  the 
principle — that  a nation  which  has  just  gained  varia- 
bility without  losing  legality  has  a singular  likelihood 
to  be  a prevalent  nation. 

No  nation  admits  of  an  abstract  definition  ; al! 
nations  are  beings  of  many  qualities  and  many  sides  \ 


62 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


no  historical  event  exactly  illustrates  any  one  principle  ; 
every  cause  is  intertwined  and  surrounded  with  a 
hundred  others.  The  best  history  is  but  like  the  art 
of  .Rembrandt ; it  casts  a vivid  light  on  certain  selected 
causes,  on  those  which  were  best  and  greatest ; it 
leaves  all  the  rest  in  shadow  and  unseen.  To  make  a 
single  nation  illustrate  a principle,  you  must  exaggerate 
much  and  you  must  omit  much.  But,  not  forgetting 
this  caution,  did  not  Borne — the  prevalent  nation  in 
the  ancient  world  — gain  her  predominance  by  the 
principle  on  which  I have  dwelt  ? In  the  thick  crust 
of  her  legalhy  there  was  hidden  a little  seed  of  adap- 
tiveness. Even  in  her  law  itself  no  one  can  fail  to  see 
that,  binding  as  wras  the  habit  of  obedience,  coercive  as 
use  and  wont  at  first  seem,  a hidden  impulse  of  extri- 
cation did  manage,  in  some  queer  way,  to  change  the 
substance  while  conforming  to  the  accidents — to  do 
what  was  wanted  for  the  new  time  while  seeming  to  do 
only  what  was  directed  by  the  old  time.  And  the 
moral  of  their  whole  history  is  the  same : each  Roman 
generation,  so  far  as  we  know,  differs  a little — and  in 
the  best  times  often  but  a very  little — from  its  prede- 
cessors. And  therefore  the  history  is  so  continuous  as 
it  goes,  though  its  two  ends  are  so  unlike.  The  history 
of  many  nations  is  like  the  stage  of  the  English  drama : 
one  scene  is  succeeded  on  a sudden  by  a scene  quite 
different, — a cottage  by  a palace,  and  a windmill  by  a 
fortress.  But  the  history  of  Borne  changes  as  a good 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


G3 


diorama  changes  ; while  you  look,  you  hardly  see  it 
alter ; each  moment  is  hardly  different  from  the  last 
moment ; yet  at  the  close  the  metamorphosis  is  com- 
plete, and  scarcely  anything  is  as  it  began.  Just  so  in 
the  history  of  the  great  prevailing  city  : you  begin 
with  a town  and  you  end  with  an  empire,  and  this  by 
unmarked  stages.  So  shrouded,  so  shielded,  in  the 
coarse  fibre  of  other  qualities  was  the  delicate  principle 
of  progress,  that  it  never  failed,  and  it  was  never 
broken. 

One  standing  instance,  no  doubt,  shows  that  the 
union  of  progressiveness  and  legality  does  not  secure 
supremacy  in  war.  The  Jewish  nation  has  its  type  of 
progress  in  the  prophets,  side  by  side  with  its  type  of 
permanence  in  the  law  and  Levites,  more  distinct  than 
any  other  ancient  people.  Nowhere  in  common  history 
do  we  see  the  two  forces — both  so  necessary  and  both 
so  dangerous — so  apart  and  so  intense : Judaea  changed 
in  inward  thought,  just  as  Rome  changed  in  exterior 
power.  Each  change  was  continuous,  gradual,  and 
good.  In  early  times  every  sort  of  advantage  tends  to 
become  a military  advantage ; such  is  the  best  way, 
then,  to  keep  it  alive.  But  the  Jewish  advantage  never 
did  so ; beginning  in  religion,  contrary  to  a thousand 
analogies,  it  remained  religious.  For  that  we  care  for 
them  ; from  that  have  issued  endless  consequences. 
But  I cannot  deal  with  such  matters  here,  nor  are  they 
to  my  purpose.  As  respects  this  essay,  Judaea  is  an 


G4 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


example  of  combined  variability  and  legality  not  invest- 
ing itself  in  warlike  power,  and  so  perishing  at  last,  but 
bequeathing  nevertheless  a legacy  of  the  combination  in 
imperishable  mental  effects. 

It  may  be  objected  that  this  principle  is  like  saying 
that  men  walk  when  they  do  walk,  and  sit  when  they 
do  sit.  The  problem  is,  why  do  men  progress  ? And 
the  answer  suggested  seems  to  be,  that  they  progress 
when  they  have  a certain  sufficient  amount  of  variability 
in  their  nature.  This  seems  to  be  the  old  style  of  ex- 
planation by  occult  qualities.  It  seems  like  saying  that 
opium  sends  men  to  sleep  because  it  has  a soporific 
virtue,  and  bread  feeds  because  it  has  an  alimentary 
quality.  But  the  explanation  is  not  so  absurd.  It 
says  : 4 The  beginning  of  civilisation  is  marked  by  an  in- 
tense legality  ; that  legality  is  the  very  condition  of  its 
existence,  the  bond  which  ties  it  together ; but  that 
legality — that  tendency  to  impose  a settled  customary 
yoke  upon  all  men  and  all  actions — if  it  goes  on,  kills 
out  the  variability  implanted  by  nature,  and  makes 
different  men  and  different  ages  facsimiles  of  other  men 
and  other  ages,  as  we  see  them  so  often.  Progress  is 
only  possible  in  those  happy  cases  where  the  force  of 
legality  has  gone  far  enough  to  bind  the  nation  together, 
but  not  far  enough  to  kill  out  all  varieties  and  destroy 
nature’s  perpetual  tendency  to  change.5  The  point  of 
the  solution  is  not  the  invention  of  an  imaginary 
agency,  but  an  assignment  of  comparative  magnitude  to 
two  known  agencies. 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


65 


III. 

This  advantage  is  one  of  the  greatest  in  early  civili- 
sation— one  of  the  facts  which  give  a decisive  turn  to 
the  battle  of  nations  ; but  there  are  many  others.  A 
little  perfection  in  political  institutions  may  do  it. 
Travellers  have  noticed  that  among  savage  tribes  those 
seemed  to  answer  best  in  which  the  monarchical  power 
was  most  predominant,  and  those  worst  in  which  the 
‘ rule  of  many  5 was  in  its  vigour.  So  long  as  war  is 
the  main  business  of  nations,  temporary  despotism 
— despotism  during  the  campaign — is  indispensable. 
Macaulay  justly  said  that  many  an  army  has  prospered 
under  a bad  commander,  but  no  army  has  ever  prospered 
under  a 6 debating  society  ; 5 that  many-headed  monster 
is  then  fatal.  Despotism  grows  in  the  first  societies, 
just  as  democracy  grows  in  more  modern  societies;  it  is 
the  government  answering  the  primary  need,  and  con- 
genial to  the  whole  spirit  of  the  time.  But  despotism 
is  unfavourable  to  the  principle  of  variability,  as  all 
history  shows.  It  tends  to  keep  men  in  the  customary 
stage  of  civilisation ; its  very  fitness  for  that  age  unfits 
it  for  the  next.  It  prevents  men  from  passing  into  the 
first  age  of  progress — the  very  slow  and  very  gradually 
improving  age.  Some  ‘ standing  system  5 of  semi-free 
discussion  is  as  necessary  to  break  the  thick  crust  of 
custom  and  begin  progress  as  it  is  in  later  ages  to  carry 
on~  progress  when  begun ; probably  it  is  even  more 


6G 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


necessary.  And  in  the  most  progressive  races  we  find 
it.  I have  spoken  already  of  the  Jewish  prophets,  the 
life  of  that  nation,  and  the  principle  of  all  its  growth. 
But  a still  more  progressive  race — that  by  which  secular 
civilisation  was  once  created,  by  which  it  is  now  mainly 
administered — had  a still  better  instrument  of  progres- 
sion. c In  the  very  earliest  glimpses,5  says  Mr.  Free- 
man, c of  Teutonic  political  life,  we  find  the  monarchic, 
the  aristocratic,  and  the  democratic  elements  already 
clearly  marked.  There  are  leaders  with  or  without  the 
royal  title  ; there  are  men  of  noble  birth,  whose  noble 
birth  (in  whatever  the  original  nobility  may  have  con- 
sisted) entitles  them  to  a pre-eminence  in  every  way  ; 
but  beyond  these  there  is  a free  and  armed  people,  in 
whom  it  is  clear  that  the  ultimate  sovereignty  resides. 
Small  matters  are  decided  by  the  chiefs  alone ; great 
matters  are  submitted  by  the  chiefs  to  the  assembled 
nation.  Such  a system  is  far  more  than  Teutonic ; it 
is  a common  Aryan  possession ; it  is  the  constitution  of 
the  Homeric  Achaians  on  earth  and  of  the  Homeric 
gods  on  Olympus.5  Perhaps,  and  indeed  probably,  this 
constitution  may  be  that  of  the  primitive  tribe  which 
Romans  left  to  go  one  way,  and  Greeks  to  go  another,  and 
Teutons  to  go  a third.  The  tribe  took  it  with  them,  as 
the  English  take  the  common  law  with  them,  because 
it  was  the  one  kind  of  polity  which  they  could  conceive 
and  act  upon ; or  it  may  be  that  the  emigrants  from 
the  primitive  Aryan  stock  only  took  with  them  a good 
aptitude — an  excellent  political  nature,  which  similar 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


67 


circumstances  in  distant  countries  were  afterwards  to 
develop  into  like  forms.  But  anyhow  it  is  impossible 
not  to  trace  the  supremacy  of  Teutons,  Greeks,  and 
Romans  in  part  to  their  common  form  of  government. 
The  contests  of  the  assembly  cherished  the  principle  of 
change ; the  influence  of  the  elders  insured  sedateness 
and  preserved  the  mould  of  thought ; and,  in  the  best 
cases,  military  discipline  was  not  impaired  by  freedom, 
though  military  intelligence  was  enhanced  with  the 
general  intelligence.  A Roman  army  was  a free  body, 
at  its  own  choice  governed  by  a peremptor}r  despotism. 

The  mixture  of  races  was  often  an  advantage,  too. 
Much  as  the  old  world  believed  in  pure  blood,  it  had 
very  little  of  it.  Most  historic  nations  conquered  pre- 
historic nations,  and  though  they  massacred  many,  they 
did  not  massacre  all.  They  enslaved  the  subject  men. 
and  they  married  the  subject  women.  No  doubt  the 
whole  bond  of  early  society  was  the  bond  of  descent ; no 
doubt  it  was  essential  to  the  notions  of  a new  nation 
that  it  should  have  had  common  ancestors;  the  modern 
idea  that  vicinity  of  habitation  is  the  natural  cement  of 
civil  union  would  have  been  repelled  as  an  impiety  if  it 
could  have  been  conceived  as  an  idea.  But  by  one  of  those 
legal  fictions  which  Sir  Henry  Maine  describes  so  well, 
primitive  nations  contrived  to  do  what  they  found  con- 
venient, as  well  as  to  adhere  to  what  they  fancied  to  be 
right.  When  they  did  not  beget  they  adopted ; they 
solemnly  made  believe  that  new  persons  were  descended 


68 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


from  the  old  stock,  though  everybody  knew  that  in  flesh 
and  blood  they  were  not.  They  made  an  artificial 
unity  in  default  of  a real  unity ; and  what  it  is  not  easy 
to  understand  now,  the  sacred  sentiment  requiring  unity 
of  race  was  somehow  satisfied  : what  was  made  did  as 
well  as  what  was  born.  Nations  with  these  sort  of 
maxims  are  not  likely  to  have  unity  of  race  in  the  modern 
sense,  and  as  a physiologist  understands  it.  What 
sorts  of  unions  improve  the  breed,  and  which  are  worse 
than  both  the  father-race  and  the  mother,  it  is  not  very 
easy  to  say.  The  subject  was  reviewed  by  M.  Quatre- 
fages  in  an  elaborate  report  upon  the  occasion  of  the 
French  Exhibition,  of  all  things  in  the  world.  M. 
Quatrefages  quotes  from  another  writer  the  phrase  that 
South  America  is  a great  laboratory  of  experiments  in 
the  mixture  of  races,  and  reviews  the  different  results 
which  different  cases  have  shown.  In  South  Carolina 
the  Mulatto  race  is  not  very  prolific,  whereas  in 
Louisiana  and  Florida  it  decidedly  is  so.  In 
Jamaica  and  in  Java  the  Mulatto  cannot  reproduce 
itself  after  the  third  generation  ; but  on  the  continent 
of  America,  as  everybody  knows,  the  mixed  race  is  now 
most  numerous,  and  spreads  generation  after  generation 
without  impediment.  Equally  various  likewise  in 
various  cases  has  been  the  fate  of  the  mixed  race 
between  the  white  man  and  the  native  American ; 
sometimes  it  prospers,  sometimes  it  fails.  And  M. 
Quatrefages  concludes  his  description  thus:  4 En  ac- 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


69 


ceptant  comme  vraies  toutes  les  observations  qui  ten- 
dent  a faire  admettre  qu’il  en  sera  autrement  dans  les 
localites  dont  j’ai  parle  pins  haut,  quelle  est  la  conclu- 
sion a tirer  de  faits  aussi  pen  semblables  ? Evidem- 
ment,  on  est  oblige  de  reconnaitre  qne  le  developpement 
de  la  race  mulatre  est  favorise,  retarde,  ou  empeche  par 
des  circonstances  locales ; en  d’autres  termes,  qu’il 
depend  des  influences  exercees  par  l’ensemble  des  con- 
ditions d’existence,  par  le  milieu .5  By  which  I under- 
stand him  to  mean  that  the  mixture  of  race  sometimes 
brings  out  a form  of  character  better  suited  than  either 
parent  form  to  the  place  and  time ; that  in  such  cases, 
by  a kind  of  natural  selection,  it  dominates  over  both 
parents,  and  perhaps  supplants  both,  whereas  in  other 
cases  the  mixed  race  is  not  as  good  then  and  there  as 
other  parent  forms,  and  then  it  passes  away  soon  and 
of  itself. 

Early  in  history  the  continual  mixtures  by  conquest 
were  just  so  many  experiments  in  mixing  races  as  are 
going  on  in  South  America  now.  New  races  wandered 
into  new  districts,  and  half  killed,  half  mixed  with  the 
old  races.  And  the  result  was  doubtless  as  various  and 
as  diflicult  to  account  for  then  as  now  ; sometimes  the 
crossing  answered,  sometimes  it  failed.  But  when  the 
mixture  was  at  its  best,  it  must  have  excelled  both 
parents  in  that  of  which  so  much  has  been  said  ; that 
is,  variability,  and  consequently  progressiveness.  There 
is  more  life  in  mixed  nations.  France,  for  instance,  i? 


70 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


justly  said  to  be  the  mean  term  between  the  Latin  and 
the  German  races.  A Norman,  as  you  may  see  by 
looking  at  him,  is  of  the  north ; a Provencal  is  of  the 
south,  of  all  that  there  is  most  southern.  You  have  in 
France  Latin,  Celtic,  German,  compounded  in  an  infi- 
nite number  of  proportions  : one  as  she  is  in  feeling, 
she  is  various  not  only  in  the  past  history  of  her  various 
provinces,  but  in  their  present  temperaments.  Like  the 
Irish  element  and  the  Scotch  element  in  the  English 
House  of  Commons,  the  variety  of  French  races  con- 
tributes to  the  play  of  the  polity  ; it  gives  a chance  for 
fitting  new  things  which  otherwise  there  would  not  be. 
And  early  races  must  have  wanted  mixing  more  than 
modern  races.  It  is  said,  in  answer  to  the  Jewish  boast 
that  c their  race  still  prospers,  though  it  is  scattered  and 
breeds  in-and-in,5  4 You  prosper  because  you  are  so  scat- 
tered ; by  acclimatisation  in  various  regions  your  nation 
has  acquired  singular  elements  of  variety ; it  contains 
within  itself  the  principle  of  variability  which  other 
nations  must  seek  by  intermarriage.5  In  the  beginning 
of  things  there  was  certainly  no  cosmopolitan  race  like 
the  Jews  ; each  race  was  a sort  of  ‘ parish  race,5  narrow 
in  thought  and  bounded  in  range,  and  it  wanted  mixing 
accordingly. 

But  the  mixture  of  races  has  a singular  danger  as 
well  as  a singular  advantage  in  the  early  world.  We 
know  now  the  Anglo-Indian  suspicion  or  contempt  for 
‘ half-castes.’  The  union  of  the  Englishman  and  the 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


71 


Hindoo  produces  something  not  only  between  races,  but 
between  moralities.  They  have  no  inherited  creed  or 
plain  place  in  the  world ; they  have  none  of  the  fixed 
traditional  sentiments  which  are  the  stays  of  human 
nature.  In  the  early  world  many  mixtures  must  have 
wrought  many  ruins;  they  must  have  destroyed  what 
they  could  not  replace — an  inbred  principle  of  discipline 
and  of  order.  But  if  these  unions  of  races  did  not  work 
thus  ; if,  for  example,  the  two  races  were  so  near  akin 
that  their  morals  united  as  well  as  their  breeds,  if  one 
race  by  its  great  numbers  and  prepotent  organisation  so 
presided  over  the  other  as  to  take  it  up  and  assimilate 
it,  and  leave  no  separate  remains  of  it,  then  the  admix- 
ture was  invaluable.  It  added  to  the  probability  of 
variability,  and  therefore  of  improvement ; and  if  that 
improvement  even  in  part  took  the  military  line,  it 
might  give  the  mixed  and  ameliorated  state  a steady 
advantage  in  the  battle  of  nations,  and  a greater  chance 
of  lasting  in  the  world. 

Another  mode  in  which  one  state  acquires  a supe- 
riority over  competing  states  is  by  provisional  institu- 
tions, if  I may  so  call  them.  The  most  important  of 
these — slavery — arises  out  of  the  same  early  conquest  as 
the  mixture  of  races.  A slave  is  an  unassimilated,  an 
undigested  atom ; something  which  is  in  the  body 
politic,  but  yet  is  hardly  part  of  it.  Slavery,  too,  lias  a 
bad  name  in  the  later  world,  and  very  justly.  We 
connect  it  with  gangs  in  chains,  with  laws  which  keep 


72 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


men  ignorant,  with  laws  that  hinder  families.  But  the 
evils  which  we  have  endured  from  slavery  in  recent 
ages  must  not  blind  us  to,  or  make  us  forget,  the  great 
services  that  slavery  rendered  in  early  ages.  There  is 
a wonderful  presumption  in  its. favour;  it  is  one  of  the 
institutions  which,  at  a certain  stage  of  growth,  all 
nations  in  all  countries  choose  and  cleave  to.  ‘ Slavery,’ 
says  Aristotle,  6 exists  by  the  law  of  nature,’  meaning 
that  it  was  everywhere  to  be  found — was  a rudimentary 
universal  point  of  polity.  ‘ There  are  very  many 
English  colonies,’  said  Edward  Gibbon  Wakefield,  as 
late  as  1848,  ‘who  would  keep  slaves  at  once  if  we 
would  let  them,’  and  be  was  speaking  not  only  of  old 
colonies  trained  in  slavery,  and  raised  upon  the  products 
of  it,  but  likewise  of  new  colonies  started  by  freemen, 
and  which  ought,  one  would  think,  to  wish  to  contain 
freemen  only.  But  Wakefield  knew  what  he  was 
saying ; he  was  a careful  observer  of  rough  societies, 
and  he  had  watched  the  minds  of  men  in  them.  He 
had  seen  that  leisure  is  the  great  need  of  early  societies, 
and  slaves  only  can  give  men  leisure.  All  freemen  in 
new  countries  must  be  pretty  equal ; every  one  has 
labour,  and  every  one  has  land ; capital,  at  least  in 
agricultural  countries  (for  pastoral  countries  are  very 
different) , is  of  little  use  ; it  cannot  hire  labour ; the 
labourers  go  and  work  for  themselves.  There  is  a story 
often  told  of  a great  English  capitalist  who  w^ent  out  to 
Australia  with  a shipload  of  labourers  and  a carriage  ; 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


73 


his  plan  was  that  the  labourers  should  build  a house  for 
him,  and  that  he  would  keep  his  carriage,  just  as  in 
England.  But  (so  the  story  goes)  he  had  to  try  to  live 
in  his  carriage,  for  his  labourers  left  him,  and  went 
away  to  work  for  themselves. 

In  such  countries  there  can  be  few  gentlemen  and  no 
ladies.  Refinement  is  only  possible  when  leisure  is 
possible  ; and  slavery  first  makes  it  possible.  It  creates 
a set  of  persons  born  to  work  that  others  may  not  work, 
and  not  to  think  in  order  that  others  may  think.  The 
sort  of  originality  which  slavery  gives  is  of  the  first 
practical  advantage  in  early  communities;  and  the  re- 
pose it  gives  is  a great  artistic  advantage  when  they 
come  to  be  described  in  history.  The  patriarchs 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  could  not  have  had  the 
steady  calm  which  marks  them,  if  they  had  themselves 
been  teased  and  hurried  about  their  flocks  and  herds. 
Refinement  of  feeling  and  repose  of  appearance  have 
indeed  no  market  value  in  the  early  bidding  of  nations; 
they  do  not  tend  to  secure  themselves  a long  future  or 
any  future.  But  originality  in  war  does,  and  slave- 
owning nations,  having  time  to  think,  are  likely  to  be 
more  shrewd  in  policy,  and  more  crafty  in  strategy. 

No  doubt  this  momentary  gain  is  bought  at  a ruinous 
after-cost.  When  other  sources  of  leisure  become  pos- 
sible, the  one  use  of  slavery  is  past.  But  all  its  evils 
remain,  and  even  grow  worse.  6 Retail 5 slavery — the 
slavery  in  which  a master  owns  a few  slaves,  whom  he 


74 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


well  knows  and  daily  sees — is  not  at  all  an  intolerable 
Btate ; the  slaves  of  Abraham  had  no  doubt  a fair  life, 
as  things  went  in  that  day.  But  wholesale  slavery, 
where  men  are  but  one  of  the  investments  of  large 
capital,  and  where  a great  owner,  so  far  from  knowing 
each  slave,  can  hardly  tell  how  many  gangs  of  them  he 
works,  is  an  abominable  state.  This  is  the  slavery 
which  has  made  the  name  revolting  to  the  best  minds, 
and  has  nearly  rooted  the  thing  out  of  the  best  of  the 
world.  There  is  no  out-of-the-way  marvel  in  this. 
The  whole  history  of  civilisation  is  strewn  with  creeds 
and  institutions  wdiich  were  invaluable  at  first,  and 
deadly  afterwards.  Progress  would  not  have  been  the 
rarity  it  is  if  the  early  food  had  not  been  the  late 
poison.  A full  examination  of  these  provisional  insti- 
tutions would  need  half  a volume,  and  would  be  out  of 
place  and  useless  here.  Venerable  oligarchy,  august 
monarchy,  are  two  that  would  alone  need  large  chapters. 
But  the  sole  point  here  necessary  is  to  say  that  such 
preliminary  forms  and  feelings  at  first  often  bring  many 
graces  and  many  refinements,  and  often  tend  to  secure 
them  by  the  preservative  military  virtue. 

There  are  cases  in  which  some  step  in  intellectual 
progress  gives  an  early  society  some  gain  in  war ; more 
obvious  cases  are  when  some  kind  of  moral  quality  gives 
some  such  gain.  War  both  needs  and  generates  certain 
virtues ; not  the  highest,  but  what  may  be  called  the 
preliminary  virtues,  as  valour,  veracity,  the  spirit  of 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


75 


obedience,  the  habit  of  discipline.  Any  of  these,  and  of 
others  like  them,  when  possessed  by  a nation,  and  no 
matter  how  generated,  will  give  them  a military  advan- 
tage, and  make  them  more  likely  to  stay  in  the  race  of 
nations.  The  Romans  probably  had  as  much  of  these 
efficacious  virtues  as  any  race  of  the  ancient  world, — 
perhaps  as  much  as  any  race  in  the  modern  world  too. 
And  the  succe'ss  of  the  nations  which  possess  these 
martial  virtues  has  been  the  great  means  by  which  their 
continuance  has  been  secured  in  the  world,  and  the  de- 
struction of  the  opposite  vices  insured  also.  Conquest 
is  the  missionary  of  valour,  and  the  hard  impact  of 
military  virtues  beats  meanness  out  of  the  world. 

In  the  last  century  it  would  have  sounded  strange  to 
speak,  as  I am  going  to  speak,  of  the  military  advantage 
of  religion . Such  an  idea  would  have  been  opposed  to 
ruling  prejudices,  and  would  hardly  have  escaped  philo- 
sophical ridicule.  But  the  notion  is  but  a commonplace 
in  our  day,  for  a man  of  genius  has  made  it  his  own. 
Mr.  Carlyle’s  books  are  deformed  by  phrases  like 
6 infinities  ’ and  6 verities,’  and  altogether  are  full  of 
faults,  which  attract  the  very  young,  and  deter  all  that 
are  older.  In  spite  of  his  great  genius,  after  a long 
life  of  writing,  it  is  a question  still  whether  even  a single 
work  of  his  can  take  a lasting  place  in  high  literature. 
There  is  a want  of  sanity  in  their  manner  which  throws 
a suspicion  on  their  substance  (though  it  is  often  pro- 
found) ; and  he  brandishes  one  or  two  fallacies,  of  which 


7G 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


lie  has  himself  a high  notion,  but  which  plain  people 
will  always  detect  and  deride.  But  whatever  may  be 
the  fate  of  his  fame,  Mr.  Carlyle  has  taught  the  present 
generation  many  lessons,  and  one  of  these  is  that  6 God- 
fearing ? armies  are  the  best  armies.  Before  his  time 
people  laughed  at  CromwelPs  saying,  6 Trust  in  God, 
and  keep  your  powder  dry.’  But  we  now  know  that  the 
trust  was  of  as  much  use  as  the  powder,  if  not  of  more. 
That  high  concentration  of  steady  feeling  makes  men 
dare  everything  and  do  anything. 

This  subject  would  run  to  an  infinite  extent  if  any 
one  were  competent  to  handle  it.  Those  kinds  of  morals 
and  that  kind  of  religion  which  tend  to  make  the  firmest 
and  most  effectual  character  are  sure  to  prevail,  all  else 
being  the  same ; and  creeds  or  systems  that  conduce  to 
a soft  limp  mind  tend  to  perish,  except  some  hard  ex- 
trinsic force  keep  them  alive.  Thus  Epicureanism 
never  prospered  at  Rome,  but  Stoicism  did ; the  stiff, 
serious  character  of  the  great  prevailing  nation  was  at- 
tracted by  what  seemed  a confirming  creed,  and  deterred 
by  what  looked  like  a relaxing  creed.  The  inspiriting 
doctrines  fell  upon  the  ardent  character,  and  so  con- 
firmed its  energy.  Strong  beliefs  win  strong  men,  and 
then  make  them  stronger.  Such  is  no  doubt  one  cause 
why  Monotheism  tends  to  prevail  over  Polytheism ; it 
produces  a higher,  steadier  character,  calmed  and  con- 
centrated by  a great  single  object ; it  is  not  confused 
by  competing  rites,  or  distracted  by  miscellaneous 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


77 


deities.  Polytheism  is  religion  in  commission , and  it  is 
weak  accordingly.  But  it  will  be  said  the  Jews,  who 
were  monotheist,  were  conquered  by  the  Romans,  who 
were  polytheist.  Yes,  it  must  be  answered,  because  the 
Romans  had  other  gifts ; they  had  a capacity  for 
politics,  a habit  of  discipline,  and  of  these  the  Jews  had 
not  the  least.  The  religious  advantage  was  an  advan- 
tage, but  it  was  counter-weighed. 

No  one  should  be  surprised  at  the  prominence  given 
to  war.  We  are  dealing  with  early  ages  ; nation -making 
is  the  occupation  of  man  in  these  ages,  and  it  is  war 
that  makes  nations.  Nation- changing  comes  afterwards, 
and  is  mostly  effected  by  peaceful  revolution,  though 
even  then  war,  too,  plays  its  part.  The  idea  of  an  in- 
destructible nation  is  a modern  idea ; in  early  ages  all 
nations  were  destructible,  and  the  further  we  go  back, 
the  more  incessant  was  the  work  of  destruction.  The 
internal  decoration  of  nations  is  a sort  of  secondary 
process,  which  succeeds  when  the  main  forces  that 
create  nations  have  principally  done  their  work.  We 
have  here  been  concerned  with  the  political  scaffolding; 
it  will  be  the  task  of  other  papers  to  trace  the  process 
of  political  finishing  and  building.  The  nicer  play  of 
finer  forces  may  then  require  more  pleasing  thoughts 
than  the  fierce  fights  of  early  ages  can  ever  suggest. 
It  belongs  to  the  idea  of  progress  that  beginnings  can 
never  seem  attractive  to  those  who  live  far  on  ; the 


78 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


price  of  improvement  is,  that  the  unimproved  will 
always  look  degraded. 

But  how  far  are  the  strongest  nations  realty  the  best 
nations?  how  far  is  excellence  in  war  a criterion  of 
other  excellence  ? I cannot  answer  this  now  fully,  but 
three  or  four  considerations  are  very  plain.  War,  as  I 
have  said,  nourishes  the  6 preliminary  5 virtues,  and  this 
is  almost  as  much  as  to  say  that  there  are  virtues  which 
it  does  not  nourish.  All  which  may  be  called  ‘ grace  5 
as  well  as  virtue  it  does  not  nourish  ; humanity,  charity, 
a nice  sense  of  the  rights  of  others,  it  certainty  does 
not  foster.  The  insensibility  to  human  suffering,  which 
is  so  striking  a fact  in  the  world  as  it  stood  when 
history  first  reveals  it,  is  doubtless  due  to  the  warlike 
origin  of  the  old  civilisation.  Bred  in  war,  and  nursed 
in  war,  it  could  not  revolt  from  the  things  of  war,  and 
one  of  the  principal  of  these  is  human  pain.  Since*  war 
•has  ceased  to  be  the  moving  force  in  the  world,  men 
have  become  more  tender  one  to  another,  and  shrink 
from  what  they  used  to  inflict  without  caring  ; and  this 
not  so  much  because  men  are  improved  (which  may  or 
may  not  be  in  various  cases),  but  because  they  have  no 
longer  the  daily  habit  of  war — have  no  longer  formed 
their  notions  upon  war,  and  therefore  are  guided  by 
thoughts  and  feelings  which  soldiers  as  such — soldiers 
educated  simply  by  their  trade — are  too  hard  to  under- 
stand. 

Very  like  this  is  the  contempt  for  physical  weakness 


THE  USE  OF  CONFLICT. 


79 


and  for  women  which  marks  early  society  too.  The 
non-combatant  population  is  sure  to  fare  ill  during  the 
ages  of  combat.  But  these  defects,  too,  are  cured  or 
lessened  ; women  have  now  marvellous  means  of  winning 
their  way  in  the  world ; and  mind  without  muscle  has 
far  greater  force  than  muscle  without  mind.  These  are 
some  of  the  after-changes  in  the  interior  of  nations,  of 
which  the  causes  must  be  scrutinised,  and  I now  men- 
tion them  only  to  bring  out  how  many  softer  growths 
have  now  half-hidden  the  old  and  harsh  civilisation 
which  war  made. 

But  it  is  very  dubious  whether  the  spirit  of  war  does 
not  still  colour  our  morality  far  too  much.  Metaphors 
from  law  and  metaphors  from  war  make  most  of  our 
current  moral  phrases,  and  a nice  examination  would 
easily  explain  that  both  rather  vitiate  what  both  often 
illustrate.  The  military  habit  makes  man  think  far  too 
much  of  definite  action,  and  far  too  little  of  brooding 
meditation.  Life  is  not  a set  campaign,  but  an  irregu- 
lar work,  and  the  main  forces  in  it  are  not  overt  resolu- 
tions, but  latent  and  half-involuntary  promptings.  The 
mistake  of  military  ethics  is  to  exaggerate  the  concep- 
tion of  discipline,  and  so  to  present  the  moral  force  of 
the  will  in  a barer  form  than  it  ever  ought  to  take. 
Military  morals  can  direct  the  axe  to  cut  down  the  tree, 
but  it  knows  nothing  of  the  quiet  force  by  which  the 
forest  grows. 

What  has  been  said  is  enough,  I hope,  to  bring  out 


80 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


that  there  are  many  qualities  and  many  institutions  of 
the  most  various  sort  which  give  nations  an  advantage 
in  military  competition ; that  most  of  these  and  most 
warlike  qualities  tend  principally  to  good ; that  the 
constant  winning  of  these  favoured  competitors  is  the 
particular  mode  by  which  the  best  qualities  wanted  in 
elementary  civilisation  are  propagated  and  preserved. 


No.  ILL 


NA  TION-MAK1NG. 

In  the  last  essay  I endeavoured  to  show  that  in  the 
early  age  of  man — the  c fighting  age  5 I called  it — there 
was  a considerable,  though  not  certain,  tendency 
towards  progress.  The  best  nations  conquered  the 
worst ; by  the  possession  of  one  advantage  or  another 
the  best  competitor  overcame  the  inferior  competitor. 
So  long  as  there  was  continual  fighting  there  was 
a likelihood  of  improvement  in  martial  virtues,  and  in 
early  times  many  virtues  are  really  ‘ martial  ’ — that  is, 
tend  to  success  in  war — which  in  later  times  we  do  not 
think  of  so  calling,  because  the  original  usefulness  *n 
hid  by  their  later  usefulness.  We  judge  of  them  by 
the  present  effects,  not  by  their  first.  The  love  of  law, 
for  example,  is  a virtue  which  no  one  now  would  call 
martial,  yet  in  early  times  it  disciplined  nations,  and 
the  disciplined  nations  won.  The  gift  of  c conservative 
innovation  5 — the  gift  of  matching  new  institutions  to 
old — is  not  nowadays  a warlike  virtue,  yet  the  Romans 
owed  much  of  their  success  to  it.  Alone  among  ancient 
nations  they  had  the  deference  to  usage  which  com- 


82 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


bines  nations,  and  the  partial  permission  of  selected 
change  which  improves  nations ; and  therefore  they 
succeeded.  Just  so  in  most  cases,  all  through  the 
earliest  times,  martial  merit  is  a token  of  real  merit : 
the  nation  that  wins  is  the  nation  that  ought  to  win. 
The  simple  virtues  of  such  ages  mostly  make  a man  a 
soldier  if  they  make  him  anything.  No  doubt  the 
brute  force  of  number  may  be  too  potent  even  then  (as 
so  often  it  is  afterwards) : civilisation  may  be  thrown 
back  by  the  conquest  of  many  very  rude  men  over  a 
few  less  rude  men.  But  the  first  elements  of  civilisa- 
tion are  great  military  advantages,  and,  roughly,  it  is 
a rule  of  the  first  times  that  you  can  infer  merit  from 
conquest,  and  that  progress  is  promoted  by  the  com- 
petitive examination  of  constant  war. 

This  principle  explains  at  once  why  the  6 protected  5 
regions  of  the  world — the  interior  of  continents  like 
Africa,  outlying  islands  like  Australia  or  New  Zealand 
• — are  of  necessity  backward.  They  are  still  in  the 
preparatory  school ; they  have  not  been  taken  on  class 
by  class,  as  No.  IT.,  being  a little  better,  routed  and 
effaced  No.  I. ; and  as  No.  III.,  being  a little  better 
still,  routed  and  effaced  No.  !J.  And  it  explains  why 
Western  Europe  was  early  in  advance  of  other  coun- 
tries, because  there  the  contest  of  races  was  exceedingly 
severe.  Unlike  most  regions,  it  was  a tempting  part 
of  the  world,  and  yet  not  a corrupting  part ; those  who 
did  not  possess  it  wanted  it,  and  those  who  had  it,  not 


NATION-MAKING. 


83 


being  enervated,  could  struggle  hard  to  keep  it.  The 
conflict  of  nations  is  at  first  a main  force  in  the  im- 
provement of  nations. 

But  what  are  nations  ? What  are  these  groups 
which  are  so  familiar  to  us,  and  yet,  if  we  stop  to  think, 
so  strange ; which  are  as  old  as  history ; which 
Herodotus  found  in  almost  as  great  numbers  and  with 
quite  as  marked  distinctions  as  we  see  them  now  ? 
What  breaks  the  human  race  up  into  fragments  so 
unlike  one  another,  and  yet  each  in  its  interior  so 
monotonous  ? The  question  is  most  puzzling,  though 
the  fact  is  so  familiar,  and  I would  not  venture  to  say 
that  I can  answer  it  completely,  though  I can  advance 
some  considerations  which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  go  a 
certain  way  towards  answering  it.  Perhaps  these  same 
considerations  throw  some  light,  too,  on  the  further 
and  still  more  interesting  question  why  some  few 
nations  progress,  and  why  the  greater  part  do  not. 

Of  course  at  first  all  such  distinctions  of  nation  and 
nation  were  explained  by  original  diversity  of  race. 
They  are  dissimilar,  it  was  said,  because  they  were 
.created  dissimilar.  But  in  most  cases  this  easy  suppo- 
sition will  not  do  its  work.  You  cannot  (consistently 
with  plain  facts)  imagine  enough  original  races  to 
make  it  tenable.  Some  half-dozen  or  more  great 
families  of  men  may  or  may  not  have  been  descended 
from  separate  first  stocks,  but  sub-varieties  have  cer- 
tainly not  so  descended.  You  may  argue,  rightly  or 


84 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


wrongly,  that  all  Aryan  nations  are  of  a single  oi 
peculiar  origin,  just  as  it  was  long  believed  that  all 
Greek-speaking  nations  were  of  one  such  stock.  But 
you  will  not  be  listened  to  if  you  say  that  there  were 
one  Adam  anr*  Eve  for  Sparta,  and  another  Adam  and 
Eve  for  Athens.  All  Greeks  are  evidently  of  one 
origin,  but  within  the  limits  of  the  Greek  family,  as  of 
all  other  families,  there  is  some  contrast -making  force 
which  causes  city  to  be  unlike  city,  and  tribe  unlike 
tribe. 

Certainly,  too,  nations  did  not  originate  by  simple 
natural  selection,  as  wild  varieties  of  animals  (I  do  not 
speak  now  of  species)  no  doubt  arise  in  nature.  Natu- 
ral selection  means  the  preservation  of  those  individuals 
which  struggle  best  with  the  forces  that  oppose  their 
race.  But  you  could  not  show  that  the  natural  ob- 
stacles opposing  human  life  much  differed  between 
•Sparta  and  Athens,  or  indeed  between  Borne  and 
Athens ; and  yet  Spartans,  Athenians,  and  Romans 
differ  essentially.  Old  writers  fancied  (and  it  was  a 
very  natural  idea)  that  the  direct  effect  of  climate,  or 
rather  of  land,  sea,  and  air,  and  the  sum  total  of 
physical  conditions  varied  man  from  man,  and  changed 
race  to  race.  But  experience  refutes  this.  The  Eng- 
lish immigrant  lives  in  the  same  climate  as  the 
Australian  or  Tasmanian,  but  he  has  not  become  like 
those  races  ; nor  will  a thousand  years,  in  most  respects, 
make  him  like  them.  The  Papuan  and  the  Malay,  as 


NATION-MAKING. 


85 


M\.  Wallace  finds,  live  now,  and  have  lived  for  ages, 
side  by  side  in  the  same  tropical  regions,  with  every 
sort  of  diversity.  Even  in  animals  his  researches  show, 
as  by  an  object-lesson,  that  the  direct  efficacy  of 
physical  conditions  is  overrated.  6 Borneo/  he  says, 
6 closely  resembles  New  Guinea,  not  only  in  its  vast 
size  and  freedom  from  volcanoes,  but  in  its  variety  of 
geological  structure,  its  uniformity  of  climate,  and  the 
general  aspect  of  the  forest  vegetation  that  clothes  its 
surface.  The  Moluccas  are  the  counterpart  of  the 
Philippines  in  their  volcanic  structure,  their  extreme 
fertility,  their  luxuriant  forests,  and  their  frequent 
earthquakes  ; and  Bali,  with  the  east  end  of  Java,  has 
a climate  almost  as  arid  as  that  of  Timor.  Yet  be- 
tween these  corresponding  groups  of  islands,  constructed, 
as  it  were,  after  the  same  pattern,  subjected  to  the 
same  climate,  and  bathed  by  the  same  oceans,  there 
exists  the  greatest  possible  contrast,  when  we  compare 
their  animal  productions.  Nowhere  does  the  ancient 
doctrine — that  differences  or  similarities  in  the  various 
forms  of  life  that  inhabit  different  countries  are  due  to 
corresponding  physical  differences  or  similarities  in  the 
countries  themselves — meet  with  so  direct  and  palpable 
a contradiction.  Borneo  and  New  Guinea,  as  alike 
physically  as  two  distinct  countries  can  be,  are  zoologi- 
cally as  wide  as  the  poles  asunder;  while  Australia 
with  its  dry  winds,  its  open  plains,  its  stony  deserts^ 
and  its  temperate  climate,  yet  produces  birds  and 


86 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


quadrupeds  which  are  closely  related  to  those  inhabit- 
ing the  hot,  damp,  luxuriant  forests  which  everywhere 
clothe  the  plains  and  mountains  of  New  Guinea.’ 
That  is,  we  have  like  living  things  in  the  most  dis- 
similar situations,  and  unlike  living  things  in  the  most 
similar  ones.  And  though  some  of  Mr.  Wallace’s 
speculations  on  ethnology  may  be  doubtful,  no  one 
doubts  that  in  the  archipelago  he  has  studied  so  well, 
as  often  elsewhere  in  the  world,  though  rarely  with 
such  marked  emphasis,  we  find  like  men  in  contrasted 
places,  and  unlike  men  in  resembling  places.  Climate 
is  clearly  not  the  force  which  makes  nations,  for  it 
does  not  always  make  them,  and  they  are  often  made 
without  it. 

The  problem  of  e nation-making  ’ — that  is,  the  ex- 
planation of  the  origin  of  nations  such  as  we  now  see 
them,  and  such  as  in  historical  times  they  have  always 
been — cannot,  as  it  seems  to  me,  be  solved  without 
separating  it  into  two : one,  the  making  of  broadly- 
marked  races,  such  as  the  negro,  or  the  red  man,  or 
the  European  ; and  the  second,  that  of  making  the  minor 
distinctions,  such  as  the  distinction  between  Spartan 
and  Athenian,  or  between  Scotchman  and  Englishman. 
Nations,  as  we  see  them,  are  (if  my  arguments  prove 
true)  the  produce  of  two  great  forces : one  the  race- 
making force  which,  whatever  it  was,  acted  in  anti- 
quity, and  has  now  wholly,  or  almost,  given  over 
acting ; and  the  other  the  nation-making  force,  pro- 


NATION-MAKING. 


87 


perly  so  called,  which  is  acting  now  as  much  as  it  ever 
acted,  and  creating  as  much  as  it  ever  created. 

The  strongest  light  on  the  great  causes  which  have 
formed  and  are  forming  nations  is  thrown  by  the  smaller 
causes  which  are  altering  nations.  The  way  in  which 
nations  change,  generation  after  generation,  is  ex- 
ceedingly curious,  and  the  change  occasionally  happens 
when  it  is  very  hard  to  account  for.  Something  seems 
to  steal  over  society,  say  of  the  Regency  time  as  com- 
pared with  that  of  the  present  Queen.  If  we  read  of  life 
at  Windsor  (at  the  cottage  now  pulled  down),  or  of  Bond 
Street  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  the  Loungers  (an  extinct 
race),  or  of  St.  James’s  Street  as  it  was  when  Mr.  Fox 
and  his  party  tried  to  make  6 political  capital  ’ out  of 
the  dissipation  of  an  heir  apparent,  we  seem  to  be 
reading  not  of  the  places  we  know  so  well,  but  of  very 
distant  and  unlike  localities.  Or  let  anyone  think  how 
little  is  the  external  change  in  England  between  the 
age  of  Elizabeth  and  the  age  of  Anne  compared  with 
the  national  change.  How  few  were  the  alterations  in 
physical  condition,  how  few  (if  any)  the  scientific  in- 
ventions affecting  human  life  which  the  later  period 
possessed,  but  the  earlier  did  not ! How  hard  it  is  to 
say  what  has  caused  the  change  in  the  people  ! And 
yet  how  total  is  the  contrast,  at  least  at  first  sight ! In 
passing  from  Bacon  to  Addison,  from  Shakespeare  to 
Pope,  we  seem  to  pass  into  a new  world. 

In  the  first  of  these  essays  I spoke  of  the  mode  in 
7 


88 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


which  the  literary  change  happens,  and  I recur  to  it 
because,  literature  being  narrower  and  more  definite 
than  life,  a change  in  the  less  serves  as  a model  and 
illustration  of  the  change  in  the  greater.  Some  writer, 
as  was  explained,  not  necessarily  a very  excellent  writer 
or  a remembered  one,  hit  on  something  which  suited 
the  public  taste : he  went  on  writing,  and  others  imi- 
tated him,  and  they  so  accustomed  their  readers  to  that 
style  that  they  would  bear  nothing  else.  Those  readers 
who  did  not  like  it  were  driven  to  the  works  of  other 
ages  and  other  countries. — had  to  despise  the  6 trash 
of  the  day,5  as  they  would  call  it.  The  age  of  Anne 
patronised  Steele,  the  beginner  of  the  essay,  and  Addi- 
son its  perfecter,  and  it  neglected  writings  in  a wholly 
discordant  key.  I have  heard  that  the  founder  of  the 
6 Times  5 was  asked  how  all  the  articles  in  the  6 Times 5 
came  to  seem  to  be  written  by  one  man,  and  that  he 
replied — 4 Oh,  there  is  always  some  one  best  contributor, 
and  all  the  rest  copy.5  And  this  is  doubtless  the  true 
account  of  the  manner  in  which  a certain  trade  mark, 
a curious  and  indefinable  unity,  settles  on  every  news- 
paper. Perhaps  it  would  be  possible  to  name  the 
men  who  a few  years  since  created  the  ‘ Saturday 
Review 5 style,  now  imitated  by  another  and  a younger 
race.  But  when  the  style  of  a periodical  is  once  formed, 
the  continuance  of  it  is  preserved  by  a much  more 
despotic  impulse  than  the  tendency  to  imitation, — by 
the  self-interest  of  the  editor,  who  acts  as  trustee , if  I 


NATION-MAKING. 


89 


may  say  so,  for  the  subscribers.  The  regular  buyers  of 
a periodical  want  to  read  what  they  have  been  used  to 
read — the  same  sort  of  thought,  the  same  sort  of  words. 
The  editor  sees  that  they  get  that  sort.  He  selects  the 
suitable,  the  conforming  articles,  and  he  rejects  the  non- 
conforming.  What  the  editor  does  in  the  case  of  a 
periodical,  the  readers  do  in  the  case  of  literature  in 
general.  They  patronise  one  thing  and  reject  the 
rest. 

Of  course  there  was  always  some  reason  (if  we  only 
could  find  it)  which  gave  the  prominence  in  each  age  to 
some  particular  winning  literature.  There  always  is 
some  reason  why  the  fashion  of  female  dress  is  what  it 
is.  But  just  as  in  the  case  of  dress  we  know  that 
now-a-days  the  determining  cause  is  very  much  of  an 
accident,  so  in  the  case  of  literary  fashion,  the  origin  is 
a good  deal  of  an  accident.  What  the  milliners  of 
Paris,  or  the  demi-monde  of  Paris,  enjoin  our  English 
ladies,  is  (I  suppose)  a good  deal  chance ; but  as  soon 
as  it  is  decreed,  those  whom  it  suits  and  those  whom  it 
does  not  all  wear  it.  The  imitative  propensity  at  once 
insures  uniformity ; and  6 that  horrid  thing  we  wore 
last  year  5 (as  the  phrase  may  go)  is  soon  nowhere  to  be 
seen.  J ust  so  a literary  fashion  spreads,  though  I am 
far  from  saying  with  equal  primitive  unreasonableness — 
a literary  taste  always  begins  on  some  decent  reason, 
but  once  started,  it  is  propagated  as  a fashion  in  dress 
is  propagated ; even  those  who  do  not  like  it  read  it 


90 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


because  it  is  there,  and  because  nothing  else  is  easily  to 
be  found. 

The  same  patronage  of  favoured  forms,  and  persecu- 
tion of  disliked  forms,  are  the  main  causes  too,  I 
believe,  which  change  national  character.  Some  one 
attractive  type  catches  the  eye,  so  to  speak,  of  the 
nation,  or  a part  of  the  nation,  as  servants  catch  the 
gait  of  their  masters,  or  as  mobile  girls  come  home 
speaking  the  special  words  and  acting  the  little  gestures 
of  each  family  whom  they  may  have  been  visiting.  I 
do  not  know  if  many  of  my  readers  happen  to  have 
read  Father  Newman’s  celebrated  sermon,  ‘ Personal 
Influence  the  Means  of  Propagating  the  Truth  ; ’ if  not, 
I strongly  recommend  them  to  do  so.  They  will  there 
see  the  opinion  of  a great  practical  leader  of  men,  of 
one  who  has  led  very  many  where  they  little  thought  of 
going,  as  to  the  mode  in  which  they  are  to  be  led ; and 
' what  he  sajrs,  put  shortly  and  simply,  and  taken  out  of 
his  delicate  language,  is  but  this — that  men  are  guided 
by  type , not  by  argument ; that  some  winning  instance 
must  be  set  up  before  them,  or  the  sermon  will  be  vain, 
and  the  doctrine  will  not  spread.  I do  not  want  to 
illustrate  this  matter  from  religious  history,  for  I 
should  be  led  far  from  my  purpose,  and  after  all  I can 
but  teach  the  commonplace  that  it  is  the  life  of  teachers 
which  is  catching , not  their  tenets.  And  again,  in 
political  matters,  how  quickly  a leading  statesman  can 
change  the  tone  of  the  community ! We  are  most  of 


NATION-MAKING. 


91 


ns  earnest  with  Mr*  Gladstone  ; we  were  most  of  us  not 
so  earnest  in  the  time  of  Lord  Palmerston.  The  change 
is  what  every  one  feels,  though  no  one  can  define  it. 
Each  predominant  mind  calls  out  a corresponding  senti- 
ment in  the  country  : most  feel  it  a little.  Those  who 
feel  it  much  express  it  much ; those  who  feel  it  exces- 
sively express  it  excessively;  those  who  dissent  are 
silent,  or  unheard. 

After  such  great  matters  as  religion  and  politics,  it 
may  seem  trifling  to  illustrate  the  subject  from  little 
boys.  But  it  is  not  trifling.  The  bane  of  philosophy 
is  pomposity  : people  will  not  see  that  small  things  are 
the  miniatures  of  greater,  and  it  seems  a loss  of  abstract 
dignity  to  freshen  their  minds  by  object  lessons  from 
what  they  know.  But  every  boarding-school  changes 
as  a nation  changes.  . Most  of  us  may  remember  think- 
ing, c How  odd  it  is  that  this  “half  ” should  be  so  un- 
like last  “half:  ” now  we  never  go  out  of  bounds,  last 
half  we  were  always  going : now  we  play  rounders, 
then  we  played  prisoner’s  base  ; ’ and  so  through  all  the 
easy  life  of  that  time.  In  fact,  some  ruling  spirits, 
some  one  or  two  ascendant  boys,  had  left,  one  or  two 
others  had  come ; and  so  all  was  changed.  The  models 
were  changed,  and  the  copies  changed ; a different 
thing  was  praised,  and  a different  thing  bullied.  A 
curious  case  of  the  same  tendency  was  noticed  to  me 
only  lately.  A friend  of  mine — a Liberal  Conservative 
— addressed  a meeting  of  working  men  at  Leeds,  and 


92 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


was  much  pleased  at  finding  his  characteristic,  and 
perhaps  refined  points,  both  apprehended  and  applauded. 
4 But  then/  as  he  narrated,  4 up  rose  a blatant  Radical 
who  said  the  very  opposite  things,  and  the  working 
men  cheered  him  too,  and  quite  equally.5  He  was 
puzzled  to  account  for  so  rapid  a change.  But  the 
mass  of  the  meeting  was  no  doubt  nearly  neutral,  and, 
if  set  going,  quite  ready  to  applaud  any  good  words 
without  much  thinking.  The  ringleaders  changed. 
The  radical  tailor  started  the  radical  cheer ; the  more 
moderate  shoemaker  started  the  moderate  cheer ; and 
the  great  bulk  followed  suit.  Only  a few  in  each  case 
were  silent,  and  an  absolute  contrast  was  in  ten  minutes 
presented  by  the  same  elements. 

The  truth  is  that  the  propensity  of  man  to  imitate 
what  is  before  him  is  one  of  the  strongest  parts  of  his 
nature.  And  one  sign  of  it  is  the  great  pain  which  we 
feel  when  our  imitation  has  been  unsuccessful.  There 
is  a cynical  doctrine  that  most  men  would  rather  be 
accused  of  wickedness  than  of  gaucherie.  And  this  is 
but  another  way  of  saying  that  the  bad  copying  of  pre- 
dominant manners  is  felt  to  be  more  of  a disgrace  than 
common  consideration  would  account  for  its  being,  since 
gaucherie  in  all  but  extravagant  cases  is  not  an  offence 
against  religion  or  morals,  but  is  simply  bad  imita- 
tion. 

We  must  not  think  that  this  imitation  is  voluntary, 
or  even  conscious.  On  the  contrary,  it  has  its  seat 


NATION-MAKING. 


93 


mainly  in  very  obscure  parts  ot  the  mind,  whose  notions, 
so  far  from  having  been  consciously  produced,  are  hardly 
felt  to  exist ; so  far  from  being  conceived  beforehand, 
are  not  even  felt  at  the  time.  The  main  seat  of  the 
imitative  part  of  our  nature  is  our  belief,  and  the  causes 
predisposing  us  to  believe  this,  or  disinclining  us  to 
believe  that,  are  among  the  obscurest  parts  of  our 
nature.  But  as  to  the  imitative  nature  of  credulity 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  In  ‘ Eothen  5 there  is  a capital 
description  of  how  every  sort  of  European  resident  in 
the  East,  even  the  shrewd  merchant  and  ‘ the  post- 
captain,5  with  his  bright,  wakeful  eyes  of  commerce, 
comes  soon  to  believe  in  witchcraft,  and  to  assure  you, 
in  confidence,  that  there  c really  is  something  in  it.5 
He  has  never  seen  anything  convincing  himself,  but  he 
has  seen  those  who  have  seen  those  who  have  seen 
those  who  have  seen.  In  fact,  he  has  lived  in  an  at- 
mosphere of  infectious  belief,  and  he  has  inhaled  it. 
Scarcely  any  one  can  help  yielding  to  the  current  in- 
fatuations of  his  sect  or  party.  For  a short  time — say 
some  fortnight — he  is  resolute  ; he  argues  and  objects  ; 
but,  day  by  day,  the  poison  thrives,  and  reason  wanes. 
What  he  hears  from  his  friends,  what  he  reads  in  the 
part}"  organ,  produces  its  effect.  The  plain,  palpable 
conclusion  which  every  one  around  him  believes,  has  an 
influence  yet  greater  and  more  subtle  ; that  conclusion 
seems  so  solid  and  unmistakable ; his  own  good  argu- 
ments get  daily  more  and  more  like  a dream.  Soon  the 


94 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


gravest  sage  shares  the  folly  of  the  party  Wxth  which  he 
acts,  and  the  sect  with  which  he  worships. 

In  true  metaphysics  I believe  that,  contrary  to  com- 
mon opinion,  unbelief  far  oftener  needs  a reason  and 
requires  an  effort  than  belief.  Naturally,  and  if  man 
were  made  according  to  the  pattern  of  the  logicians,  he 
would  say,  ‘ When  I see  a valid  argument  I will  believe, 
and  till  I see  such  argument  I will  not  believe.5  But, 
in  fact,  every  idea  vividly  before  us  soon  appears  to  us  to 
be  true,  unless  we  keep  up  our  perceptions  of  the  argu- 
ments which  prove  it  untrue,  and  voluntarily  coerce  our 
minds  to  remember  its  falsehood.  ‘ All  (dear  ideas  are 
true,5  was  for  ages  a philosophical  maxim,  and  though 
no  maxim  can  be  more  unsound,  none  can  be  more 
exactly  conformable  to  ordinary  human  nature.  The 
child  resolutely  accepts  every  idea  which  passes  through 
its  brain  as  true ; it  has  no  distinct  conception  of  an 
idea  which  is  strong,  bright,  and  permanent,  but  which 
is  false  too.  The  mere  presentation  of  an  idea,  unless 
we  are  careful  about  it,  or  unless  there  is  within  some 
unusual  resistance,  makes  us  believe  it ; and  this  is  why 
the  belief  of  others  adds  to  our  belief  so  quickly,  for  no 
ideas  seem  so  very  clear  as  those  inculcated  on  us  from 
every  side. 

The  grave  part  of  mankind  are  quite  as  liable  to  these 
imitated  beliefs  as  the  frivolous  part.  The  belief  of  the 
money-market,  which  is  mainly  composed  of  grave 
people,  is  as  imitative  as  anv  belief.  You  will  find  one 


NATION-MAKING. 


95 


day  everyone  enterprising,  enthusiastic,  vigorous,  eager 
to  buy,  and  eager  to  order : in  a week  or  so  you  will 
find  almost  the  whole  society  depressed,  anxious,  and 
wanting  to  sell.  If  you  examine  the  reasons  for  the 
activity,  or  for  the  inactivity,  or  for  the  change,  you  will 
hardly  be  able  to  trace  them  at  all,  and  as  far  as  you 
can  trace  them,  they  are  of  little  force.  In  fact,  these 
opinions  were  not  formed  by  reason,  but  by  mimicry. 
Something  happened  that  looked  a little  good,  on  which 
eager  sanguine  men  talked  loudly,  and  common  people 
caught  their  tone.  A little  while  afterwards,  and  when 
people  were  tired  of  talking  this,  something  also  hap- 
pened looking  a little  bad,  on  which  the  dismal,  anxious 
people  began,  and  all  the  rest  followed  their  words. 
And  in  both  cases  an  avowed  dissentient  is  set  down  as 
‘ crotchety.5  ‘ If  you  want,5  said  Swift,  ‘ to  gain  the 
reputation  of  a sensible  man,  you  should  be  of  the 
opinion  of  the  person  with  whom  for  the  time  being  you 
are  conversing.5  There  is  much  quiet  intellectual  per- 
secution among  c reasonable 5 men;  a cautious  person 
hesitates  before  he  tells  them  anything  new,  for  if  he 
gets  a name  for  such  things  he  will  be  called  ‘ flighty,5 
and  in  times  of  decision  he  will  not  be  attended  to. 

In  this  way  the  infection  of  imitation  catches  men  in 
their  most  inward  and  intellectual  part —their  creed. 
But  it  also  invades  men — by  the  most  bodily  part  of 
the  mind — so  to  speak — the  link  between  soul  and  body 
— the  manner.  No  one  needs  to  have  this  explained 


96 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


we  all  know  how  a kind  of  subtle  influence  makes  us 
imitate  or  try  to  imitate  the  manner  of  those  around  us. 
To  conform  to  the  fashion  of  Rome — whatever  the  fashion 
may  be,  and  whatever  Rome  we  may  for  the  time  be 
at — is  among  the  most  obvious  needs  of  human  nature. 
But  what  is  not  so  obvious,  though  as  certain,  is  that 
the  influence  of  the  imitation  goes  deep  as  well  as  ex- 
tends wide.  ‘ The  matter,’  as  Wordsworth  says,  ‘of 
style  very  much  comes  out  of  the  manner.’  If  you  will 
endeavour  to  write  an  imitation  of  the  thoughts  of 
Swift  in  a copy  of  the  style  of  Addison,  you  will  find 
that  not  only  is  it  hard  to  write  Addison’s  style,  from 
its  intrinsic  excellence,  but  also  that  the  more  you  ap- 
proach to  it  the  more  you  lose  the  thought  of  Swift. 
The  eager  passion  of  the  meaning  beats  upon  the  mild 
drapery  of  the  words.  So  you  could  not  express  the 
plain  thoughts  of  an  Englishman  in  the  grand  manner 
of  a Spaniard.  Insensibly,  and  as  by  a sort  of  magic, 
the  kind  of  manner  which  a man  catches  eats  into  him, 
and  makes  him  in  the  end  what  at  first  he  only  seems. 

This  is  the  principal  mode  in  which  the  greatest 
minds  of  an  age  produce  their  effect.  They  set  the 
tone  which  others  take,  and  the  fashion  which  others 
use.  There  is  an  odd  idea  that  those  who  take  what  is 
called  a scientific  view 9 of  history  need  rate  lightly  the 
influence  of  individual  character.  It  would  be  as  rea- 
sonable to  say  that  those  who  take  a scientific  view  of 
nature  need  think  little  of  the  influence  of  the  sun. 


NATION-MAKING. 


97 


On  the  scientific  view  a great  man  is  a great  new  cause 
(compounded  or  not  out  of  other  causes,  for  I do  not 
here,  or  elsewhere  in  these  papers,  raise  the  question  of 
free-will),  but,  anyhow,  new  in  all  its  effects,  and  all  its 
results.  Great  models  for  good  and  evil  sometimes 
appear  among  men,  who  follow  them  either  to  improve- 
ment or  degradation. 

I am,  I know,  very  long  and  tedious  in  setting  out 
this ; but  I want  to  bring  home  to  others  what  every 
new  observation  of  society  brings  more  and  more  freshly 
to  myself — that  this  unconscious  imitation  and  encou- 
ragement of  appreciated  character,  and  this  equally 
unconscious  shrinking  from  and  persecution  of  disliked 
character,  is  the  main  force  which  moulds  and  fashions 
men  in  society  as  we  now  see  it.  Soon  I shall  try  to 
show  that  the  more  acknowledged  causes,  such  as 
change  6f  climate,  alteration  of  political  institutions, 
progress  of  science,  act  principally  through  this  cause  ; 
that  they  change  the  object  of  imitation  and  the  object 
of  avoidance,  and  so  work  their  effect.  But  first  I must 
speak  of  the  origin  of  nations — of  nation-making  as  one 
may  call  it — the  proper  subject  of  this  paper. 

The  process  of  nation-making  is  one  of  which  we  have 
obvious  examples  in  the  most  recent  times,  and  which 
is  going  on  now.  The  most  simple  example  is  the 
foundation  of  the  first  State  of  America,  say  New 
England,  which  has  such  a marked  and  such  a deep 
national  character.  A great  number  of  persons  agree- 


98 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


ing  in  fundamental  disposition,  agreeing  in  religion, 
agreeing  in  politics,  form  a separate  settlement ; they 
exaggerate  their  own  disposition,  teach  their  own  creed, 
set  up  their  favourite  government ; they  discourage  all 
other  dispositions,  persecute  other  beliefs,  forbid  other 
forms  or  habits  of  government.  Of  course  a nation  so 
made  will  have  a separate  stamp  and  mark.  The 
original  settlers  began  of  one  type  ; they  sedulously 
imitated  it ; and  (though  other  causes  have  intervened 
and  disturbed  it)  the  necessary  operation  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  inheritance  has  transmitted  many  original 
traits  still  unaltered,  and  has  left  an  entire  New  England 
character — in  no  respect  unaffected  by  its  first  cha- 
racter. 

This  case  is  well  known,  but  it  is  not  so  that  the 
same  process,  in  a weaker  shape,  is  going  on  in  America 
now.  Congeniality  of  sentiment  is  a reason  of  selection, 
.and  a bond  of  cohesion  in  the  ‘ West 5 at  present. 
Competent  observers  say  that  townships  grow  up  there 
by  each  place  taking  its  own  religion,  its  own  manners, 
and  its  own  ways.  Those  who  have  these  morals  and 
that  religion  go  to  that  place,  and  stay  there  ; and 
those  who  have  not  these  morals  and  that  religion 
either  settle  elsewhere  at  first,  or  soon  pass  on. 
The  days  of  colonisation  by  sudden  ‘ swarms  5 of  like 
creed  is  almost  over,  but  a less  visible  process  of  attrac- 
tion by  similar  faith  over  similar  is  still  in  vigour,  and 
very  likely  to  continue. 


NATION-MAKING-. 


99 


And  in  cases  where  this  principle  does  not  operate, 
all  new  settlements,  being  formed  of  6 emigrants/  are 
sure  to  be  composed  of  rather  restless  people,  mainly. 
The  stay-at-home  people  are  not  to  be  found  there,  and 
these  are  the  quiet,  easy  people.  A new  settlement 
voluntarily  formed  (for  of  old  times,  when  people  were 
expelled  by  terror,  I am  not  speaking)  is  sure  to  have 
in  it  much  more  than  the  ordinary  proportion  of  active 
men,  and  much  less  than  the  ordinary  proportion  of 
inactive  ; and  this  accounts  for  a large  part,  though  not 
perhaps  all,  of  the  difference  between  the  English  in 
England,  and  the  English  in  Australia. 

The  causes  which  formed  New  England  in  recent 
times  cannot  be  conceived  as  acting  much  upon  man- 
kind in  their  infancy.  Society  is  not  then  formed  upon 
a 6 voluntary  system  5 but  upon  an  involuntary.  A man 
in  early  ages  is  born  to  a certain  obedience,  and  cannot 
extricate  himself  from  an  inherited  government.  So- 
ciety then  is  made  up,  not  of  individuals,  but  of 
families ; creeds  then  descend  by  inheritance  in  those 
families.  Lord  Melbourne  once  incurred  the  ridicule 
of  philosophers  by  saying  he  should  adhere  to  the 
English  Church  because  it  was  the  religion  of  his 
fathers.  The  philosophers,  of  course,  said  that  a man’s 
fathers’  believing  anything  was  no  reason  for  his  be- 
lieving it  unless  it  was  true.  But  Lord  Melbourne  was 
only  uttering  out  of  season,  and  in  a modern  time,  one 
of  the  most  firm  and  accepted  maxims  of  old  times.  A 


100 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


secession  on  religious  grounds  of  isolated  Romans  fco  sail 
beyond  sea  would  have  seemed  to  the  ancient  Romans  an 
impossibility.  In  still  ruder  ages  the  religion  of  savages 
is  a thing  too  feeble  to  create  a schism  or  to  found  a 
community.  We  are  dealing  with  people  capable  of 
history  when  we  speak  of  great  ideas,  not  with  pre- 
historic flint-men  or  the  present  savages.  But  though 
under  very  different  forms,  the  same  essential  causes — 
the  imitation  of  preferred  characters  and  the  elimination 
of  detested  characters — were  at  work  in  the  oldest 
times,  and  are  at  work  among  rude  men  now.  Strong 
as  the  propensity  to  imitation  is  among  civilised  men, 
we  must  conceive  it  as  an  impulse  of  which  their  minds 
have  been  partially  denuded.  Like  the  far-seeing  sight, 
the  infallible  hearing,  the  magical  scent  of  the  savage, 
it  is  a half-lost  power.  It  was  strongest  in  ancient 
times,  and  is  strongest  in  uncivilised  regions. 

This  extreme  propensity  to  imitation  is  one  great 
reason  of  the  amazing  sameness  which  every  observer 
notices  in  savage  nations.  When  you  have  seen  one 
Fuegian,  you  have  seen  all  Fuegians — one  Tasmanian,  all 
Tasmanians.  The  higher  savages,  as  the  New  Zea- 
landers, are  less  uniform  ; they  have  more  of  the  varied 
and  compact  structure  of  civilised  nations,  because  in 
other  respects  they  are  more  civilised.  They  have 
greater  mental  capacity — larger  stores  of  inward 
thought.  But  much  of  the  same  monotonous  nature 
clings  to  them  too.  A savage  tribe  resembles  a herd 


NATION-MAKING-. 


101 


of  gregarious  beasts ; where  the  leader  goes  they  go 
too  ; they  copy  blindly  his  habits,  and  thus  soon  become 
that  which  he  already  is.  For  not  only  the  tendency, 
but  also  the  power  to  imitate,  is  stronger  in  savages 
than  civilised  men.  Savages  copy  quicker,  and  they 
copy  better.  Children,  in  the  same  way,  are  born 
mimics  ; they  cannot  help  imitating  what  comes  before 
them.  There  is  nothing  in  their  minds  to  resist  the 
propensity  to  copy.  Every  educated  man  has  a large 
inward  supply  of  ideas  to  which  he  can  retire,  and  in 
which  he  can  escape  from  or  alleviate  unpleasant  out- 
ward objects.  But  a savage  or  a child  has  no  resource. 
The  external  movements  before  it  are  its  very  life  ; it 
lives  by  what  it  sees  and  hears.  Uneducated  people  in 
civilised  nations  have  vestiges  of  the  same  condition. 
If  you  send  a housemaid  and  a philosopher  to  a foreign 
country  of  which  neither  knows  the  language,  the 
chances  are  that  the  housemaid  will  catch  it  before  the 
philosopher.  He  has  something  else  to  do ; he  can  live 
in  his  own  thoughts.  But  unless  she  can  imitate  the 
utterances,  she  is  lost ; she  has  no  life  till  she  can  join 
in  the  chatter  of  the  kitchen.  The  propensity  to 
mimicry,  and  the  power  of  mimicry,  are  mostly  strong- 
est in  those  who  have  least  abstract  minds.  The  most 
wonderful  examples  of  imitation  in  the  world  are  per- 
haps the  imitations  of  civilised  men  by  savages  in  the 
use  of  martial  weapons.  They  learn  the  'knack , as 
sportsmen  call  it,  with  inconceivable  rapidity.  A North 


102 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


American  Indian — an  Australian  even — can  shoot  as 
well  as  any  white  man.  Here  the  motive  is  at  its 
maximum,  as  well  as  the  innate  power.  Every  savage 
cares  more  for  the  power  of  killing  than  for  any  other 
power. 

The  persecuting  tendency  of  all  savages,  and,  indeed, 
of  all  ignorant  people,  is  even  more  striking  than  their 
imitative  tendency.  No  barbarian  can  bear  to  see  one 
of  his  nation  deviate  from  the  old  barbarous  customs 
and  usages  of  their  tribe.  Very  commonly  all  the  tribe 
would  expect  a punishment  from  the  gods  if  any  one  of 
them  refrained  from  what  was  old,  or  began  what  was 
new.  In  modern  times  and  in  cultivated  countries  we 
regard  each  person  as  responsible  only  for  his  own 
actions,  and  do  not  believe,  or  think  of  believing,  that 
the  misconduct  of  others  can  bring  guilt  on  them. 
(Juilt  to  us  is  an  individual  taint  consequent  on  choice 
and  cleaving  to  the  chooser.  But  in  early  ages  the  act 
of  one  member  of  the  tribe  is  conceived  to  make  all  the 
tribe  impious,  to  offend  its  peculiar  god,  to  expose  all 
the  tribe  to  penalties  from  heaven.  There  is  no  c limi- 
ted liability  5 in  the  political  notions  of  that  time.  The 
early  tribe  or  nation  is  a religious  partnership,  on  which 
a rash  member  by  a sudden  impiety  may  bring  utter 
ruin.  If  the  state  is  conceived  thus,  toleration  becomes 
wicked.  A permitted  deviation  from  the  transmitted 
ordinances  becomes  simple  folly.  It  is  a sacrifice  of 
the  happiness  of  the  greatest  number.  It  is  allowing 


NATION-MAKING-. 


103 


one  individual,  for  a moment’s  pleasure  or  a stupid 
whim,  to  bring  terrible  and  irretrievable  calamity  upon 
all.  No  one  will  ever  understand  even  Athenian  history, 
who  forgets  this  idea  of  the  old  world,  though  Athens 
was,  in.  comparison  with  others,  a rational  and  sceptical 
place,  ready  for  new  views,  and  free  from  old  prejudices. 
When  the  street  statues  of  Hermes  were  mutilated,  all 
the  Athenians  were  frightened  and  furious ; they 
thought  that  they  should  all  be  ruined  because  some 
one  had  mutilated  a god’s  image,  and  so  offended  him. 
Almost  every  detail  of  life  in  the  classical  times — the 
times  when  real  history  opens — was  invested  with  a 
religious  sanction ; a sacred  ritual  regulated  human 
action ; whether  it  was  called  6 law  5 or  not,  much  of  it 
was  older  than  the  word  ‘ law ; 5 it  was  part  of  an 
ancient  usage  conceived  as  emanating  from  a super- 
human authority,  and  not  to  be  transgressed  without 
risk  of  punishment  by  more  than  mortal  power.  There 
was  such  a solidarity  then  between  citizens,  that  each 
might  be  led  to  persecute  the  other  for  fear  of  harm  to 
himself. 

It  may  be  said  that  these  two  tendencies  of  the  early 
world — that  to  persecution  and  that  to  imitation — 
must  conflict;  that  the  imitative  impulse  would  lead 
men  to  copy  what  is  new,  and  that  persecution  by 
traditional  habit  would  prevent  their  copying  it.  But 
in  practice  the  two  tendencies  co-operate.  There  is 

a strong  tendency  to  copy  the  most  common  thing,  and 

8 


104 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


that  common  thing  is  the  old  habit.  Daily  imitation 
is  far  oftenest  a conservative  force,  for  the  most  fre- 
quent models  are  ancient.  Of  course,  however,  some- 
thing new  is  necessary  for  ev^ry  man  and  for  every 
nation.  We  may  wish,  if  we  please,  that  to-morrow 
shall  be  like  to-day,  but  it  will  not  be  like  it.  New 
forces  will  impinge  upon  us  ; new  wind,  new  rain,  and 
the  light  of  another  sun ; and  we  must  alter  to  meet 
them.  But  the  persecuting  habit  and  the  imitative 
combine  to  insure  that  the  new  thing  shall  be  in  the 
old  fashion ; it  must  be  an  alteration,  but  it  shall 
contain  as  little  of  variety  as  possible.  The  imitative 
impulse  tends  to  this,  because  men  most  easily  imitate 
what  their  minds  are  best  prepared  for, — what  is  like 
the  old,  yet  with  the  inevitable  minimum  of  alteration ; 
what  throws  them  least  out  of  the  old  path,  and  puzzles 
least  their  minds.  The  doctrine  of  development  means 
this, — that  in  unavoidable  changes  men  like  the  new 
doctrine  which  is  most  of  a c preservative  addition 5 to 
their  old  doctrines.  The  imitative  and  the  persecuting 
tendencies  make  all  change  in  early  nations  a kind  of 
selective  conservatism,  for  the  most  part  keeping  what 
is  old,  but  annexing  some  new  but  like  practice — an 
additional  turret  in  the  old  style. 

It  is  this  process  of  adding  suitable  things  and  re- 
jecting discordant  things  which  has  raised  those  scenes 
of  strange  manners  which  in  every  part  of  the  woild 
puzzle  the  civilised  men  who  come  upon  them  first* 


NATION-MAKING. 


105 


Like  the  old  head-dress  of  mountain  villages,  they 
make  the  traveller  think  not  so  much  whether  they  are 
good  or  whether  they  are  bad,  as  wonder  how  any  one 
could  have  come  to  think  of  them ; to  regard  them  as 
ti  monstrosities,’  which  only  some  wild  abnormal  intellect 
could  have  hit  upon.  And  wild  and  abnormal  indeed 
would  be  that  intellect  if  it  were  a single  one  at  all. 
But  in  fact  such  manners  are  the  growth  of  ages,  like 
Reman  law  or  the  British  constitution.  No  one  man — 
no  one  generation — could  have  thought  of  them, — only 
a series  of  generations  trained  in  the  habits  of  the  last 
and  wanting  something  akin  to  such  habits,  could  have 
devised  them.  Savages  pet  their  favourite  habits,  so  to 
sa}r,  and  preserve  them  as  they  do  their  favourite 
animals ; ages  are  required,  but  at  last  a national  cha- 
racter is  formed  by  the  confluence  of  congenial  attrac- 
tions and  accordant  detestations. 

Another  cause  helps.  In  early  states  of  civilisation 
t there  is  a great  mortality  of  infant  life,  and  this  is  a 
i kind  of  selection  in  itself — the  child  most  fit  to  be  a 
good  Spartan  is  most  likely  to  survive  a Spartan  child- 
hood. The  habits  of  the  tribe  are  enforced  on  the 
child  ; if  he  is  able  to  catch  and  copy  them  he  lives  ; if 
he  cannot  he  dies.  The  imitation  which  assimilates 
early  nations  continues  through  life,  but  it  begins  with 
suitable  forms  and  acts  on  picked  specimens.  I sup- 
pose, too,  that  there  is  a kind  of  parental  selection 
operating  in  the  same  way  and  probably  tending  to 


106 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


keep  alive  the  same  individuals.  Those  children  which 
gratified  their  fathers  and  mothers  most  would  he  most 
tenderly  treated  by  them,  and  have  the  best  chance  to 
live,  and  as  a rough  rule  their  favourites  would  be  the 
children  of  most  6 promise/  that  is  to  say,  those  who 
seemed  most  likely  to  be  a credit  to  the  tribe  according 
to  the  leading  tribal  manners  and  the  existing  tribal 
tastes.  The  most  gratifying  child  would  be  the  best 
looked  after,  and  the  most  gratifying  would  be  the  best 
specimen  of  the  standard  then  and  there  raised  up. 

Even  so,  I think  there  will  be  a disinclination  to 
attribute  so  marked,  fixed,  almost  physical  a thing  as 
national  character  to  causes  so  evanescent  as  the  imi- 
tation of  appreciated  habit  and  the  persecution  of 
detested  habit.  But,  after  all,  national  character  is  but 
a name  for  a collection  of  habits  more  or  less  universal. 
And  this  imitation  and  this  persecution  in  long  genera- 
tions have  vast  physical  effects.  The  mind  of  the 
parent  (as  we  speak)  passes  somehow  to  the  body  of  the 
child.  The  transmitted  6 something  5 is  more  affected 
by  habits  than  it  is  by  anything  else.  In  time  an  in- 
grained type  is  sure  to  be  formed,  and  sure  to  be  passed 
on  if  only  the  causes  I have  specified  be  fully  in  action 
and  without  impediment. 

As  I have  said,  I am  not  explaining  the  origin  of 
races,  but  of  nations,  or,  if  you  like,  of  tribes.  I fully 
admit  that  no  imitation  of  predominant  manner,  or 
prohibitions  of  detested  manners,  will  of  themselves 


NATION-MAKING. 


107 


account  for  the  broadest  contrasts  of  human  nature. 
Such  means  would  no  more  make  a Negro  out  of  a 
Brahmin,  or  a Red- man  out  of  an  Englishman,  than 
washing  would  change  the  spots  of  a leopard  or  the 
colour  of  an  Ethiopian.  Some  more  potent  causes  must 
co-operate,  or  we  should  not  have  these  enormous 
diversities.  The  minor  causes  I deal  with  made  Greek 
to  differ  from  Greek,  but  they  did  not  make  the  Greek 
race.  We  cannot  precisely  mark  the  limit,  but  a limit 
there  clearly  is. 

If  we  look  at  the  earliest  monuments  of  the  human 
race,  we  find  these  race-characters  as  decided  as  the 
race-characters  now.  The  earliest  paintings  or  sculp- 
tures we  anywhere  have,  give  us  the  present  contrasts 
of  dissimilar  types  as  strongly  as  present  observation. 
Within  historical  memory  no  such  differences  have  been 
created  as  those  between  Negro  and  Greek,  between 
Papuan  and  Red  Indian,  between  Esquimaux  and  Goth. 
We  start  with  cardinal  diversities  ; we  trace  only  minor 
modifications,  and  we  only  see  minor  modifications. 
And  it  is  very  hard  to  see  how  any  number  of  such 
modifications  could  change  man  as  he  is  in  one  race- 
type  to  man  as  he  is  in  some  other.  Of  this  there  are 
but  two  explanations ; one , that  these  great  types  were 
originally  separate  creations,  as  they  stand — that  the 
Negro  was  made  so,  and  the  Greek  made  so.  But  this 
easy  hypothesis  of  special  creation  has  been  tried  so 
often,  and  has  broken  down  so  very  often,  that  in  11c 


108 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


case,  probably,  do  any  great  number  of  careful  inquirers 
very  firmly  believe  it.  They  may  accept  it  provisionally, 
as  the  best  hypothesis  at  present,  but  they  feel  about  it 
as  they  cannot  help  feeling  as  to  an  army  which  has 
always  been  beaten;  however  strong  it  seems,  they 
think  it  will  be  beaten  again.  What  the  other  expla- 
nation is  exactly  I cannot  pretend  to  say.  Possibly  as 
yet  the  data  for  a confident  opinion  are  not  before  ns. 
But  by  far  the  most  plausible  suggestion  is  that  of  Mr. 
Wallace,  that  these  race- marks  are  living  records  of  a 
time  when  the  intellect  of  man  was  not  as  able  as  it  is 
now  to  adapt  his  life  and  habits  to  change  of  region ; 
that  consequently  early  mortality  in  the  first  wanderers 
was  beyond  conception  great ; that  only  those  (so  to 
say)  haphazard  individuals  throve  who  were  born  with 
a protected  nature — that  is,  a nature  suited  to  the 
climate  and  the  country,  fitted  to  use  its  advantages, 
shielded  from  its  natural  diseases.  According  to  Mr. 
Wallace,  the  Negro  is  the  remnant  of  the  one  variety  of 
man  who  without  more  adaptiveness  than  then  existed 
could  live  in  Interior  Africa.  Immigrants  died  off  till 
they  produced  him  or  something  like  him,  and  so  of  the 
Esquimaux  or  the  American. 

Any  protective  habit  also  struck  out  in  such  a time 
would  have  a far  greater  effect  than  it  could  afterwards. 
A gregarious  tribe,  whose  leader  was  in  some  imitable 
respects  adapted  to  the  struggle  for  life,  and  which 
copied  its  leader,  would  have  an  enormous  advantage 


NATION-MAKING 


109 


in  the  struggle  for  life.  It  would  be  sure  to  win  and 
live,  for  it  would  be  coherent  and  adapted,  whereas,  in 
comparison,  competing  tribes  would  be  incoherent  and 
unadapted.  And  I suppose  that  in  early  times,  when 
those  bodies  did  not  already  contain  the  records  and 
the  traces  of  endless  generations,  any  new  habit  would 
more  easily  fix  its  mark  on  the  heritable  element,  and 
would  be  transmitted  more  easily  and  more  certainly. 
In  such  an  age,  man  being  softer  and  more  pliable, 
deeper  race-marks  would  be  more  easily  inscribed  and 
would  be  more  likely  to  continue  legible. 

But  I have  no  pretence  to  speak  on  such  matters ; 
this  paper,  as  I have  so  often  explained,  deals  with 
nation-making  and  not  with  race-making.  I assume  a 
world  of  marked  varieties  of  man,  and  only  want  to 
show  how  less  marked  contrasts  would  probably  and 
naturally  arise  in  each.  Given  large  homogeneous 
populations,  some  Negro,  some  Mongolian,  some  Aryan, 
I have  tried  to  prove  how  small  contrasting  groups 
would  certainly  spring  up  within  each — some  to  last 
and  some  to  perish.  These  are  the  eddies  in  each 
race-stream  which  vary  its  surface,  and  are  sure  to  last 
till  some  new  force  changes  the  current.  These  miner 
varieties,  too,  would  be  infinitely  compounded,  not  only 
with  those  of  the  same  race,  but  with  those  of  others. 
Since  the  beginning  of  man,  stream  has  been  a thou- 
sand times  poured  into  stream — quick  into  sluggish, 
dark  into  pale  - and  eddies  and  waters  have  taken  new 


no 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


shapes  and  new  colours,  affected  by  what  went  before, 
but  not  resembling  it.  And  then  on  the  fresh  mass, 
the  old  forces  of  composition  and  elimination  again 
begin  to  act,  and  create  over  the  new  surface  another 
world.  6 Motley  was  the  wear 5 of  the  world  when 
Herodotus  first  looked  on  it  and  described  it  to  us,  and 
thus,  as  it  seems  to  me,  were  its  varying  colours  pro- 
duced. 

If  it  be  thought  that  I have  made  out  that  these 
forces  of  imitation  and  elimination  be  the  main  ones, 
or  even  at  all  powerful  ones,  in  the  formation  or 
national  character,  it  will  follow  that  the  effect  of 
ordinary  agencies  upon  that  character  will  be  more 
easy  to  understand  than  it  often  seems  and  is  put  down 
in  books.  We  get  a notion  that  a change  of  govern- 
ment or  a change  of  climate  acts  equally  on  the  mass  of 
a nation,  and  so  are  we  puzzled — at  least,  I have  been 
puzzled — to  conceive  how  it  acts.  But  such  changes 
do  not  at  first  act  equally  on  all  people  in  the  nation. 
On  many,  for  a very  long  time,  they  do  not  act  at  all. 
But  they  bring  out  new  qualities,  and  advertise  the 
effects  of  new  habits.  A change  of  climate,  say  from  a 
depressing  to  an  invigorating  one,  so  acts.  Everybody 
feels  it  a little,  but  the  most  active  feel  it  exceedingly. 
They  labour  and  prosper,  and  their  prosperity  invites 
imitation.  Just  so  with  the  contrary  change,  from  an 
animating  to  a relaxing  place,—  the  naturally  lazy  look 
so  happy  as  they  do  nothing,  that  the  naturally  active 


NATION-MAKING. 


Ill 


Are  corrupted.  The  effect  of  any  considerable  change 
on  a nation  is  thus  an  intensifying  and  accumulating 
effect.  With  its  maximum  power  it  acts  on  some 
prepared  and  congenial  individuals  ; in  them  it  is  seen 
to  produce  attractive  results,  and  then  the  habits 
creating  those  results  are  copied  far  and  wide.  And,  as 
I believe,  it  is  in  this  simple  but  not  quite  obvious  way, 
that  the  process  of  progress  and  of  degradation  may 
generally  be  seen  to  run. 


112 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


No.  IV. 

NATION-MAKING, 

All  theories  as  to  the  primitive  man  must  be  very  un- 
certain. Granting  the  doctrine  of  evolution  to  be  true, 
man  must  be  held  to  have  a common  ancestor  with  the 
rest' of  the  Primates . But  then  we  do  not  know  what 
their  common  ancestor  was  like.  If  ever  we  are  to  have 
a distinct  conception  of  him,  it  can  only  be  after  long 
years  of  future  researches  and  the  laborious  accumula- 
tion of  materials,  scarcely  the  beginning  of  which  now 
* xists.  But  science  has  already  done  something  for  us. 
it  cannot  yet  tell  us  our  first  ancestor,  but  it  can  tell  us 
much  of  an  ancestor  very  high  up  in  the  line  of  descent. 
We  cannot  get  the  least  idea  (even  upon  the  full  as- 
sumption of  the  theory  of  evolution)  of  the  first  man ; 
but  we  can  get  a very  tolerable  idea  of  the  Paulo-pre- 
historic man,  if  I may  so  say — of  man  as  he  existed 
some  short  time  (as  we  now  reckon  shortness),  some  ten 
thousand  years,  before  history  began.  Investigators 
whose  acuteness  and  diligence  can  hardly  be  surpassed — • 
Sir  John  Lubbock  and  Mr.  Ty lor  are  the  chiefs  among 


NATION-MAKING. 


118 


them — have  collected  so  much  and  explained  so  much 
that  they  have  left  a fairly  vivid  result. 

That  result  is,  or  seems  to  me  to  be,  if  I may  sum  it 
up  in  my  own  words,  that  the  modern  pre-historic  men 
— those  of  whom  we  have  collected  so  many  remains, 
and  to  whom  are  due  the  ancient,  strange  customs  of 
historical  nations  (the  fossil  customs,  we  might  call 
them,  for  very  often  they  are  stuck  by  themselves  in 
real  civilisation,  and  have  no  more  part  in  it  than  the 
fossils  in  the  surrounding  strata) — pre-historic  men  in 
this  sense  were  6 savages  without  the  fixed  habits  of 
savages ; ’ that  is,  that,  like  savages,  they  had  strong 
passions  and  weak  reason ; that,  like  savages,  they 
preferred  short  spasms  of  greedy  pleasure  to  mild  and 
equable  enjoyment ; that,  like  savages,  they  could  not 
postpone  the  present  to  the  future  ; that,  like  savages, 
their  ingrained  sense  of  morality  was,  to  say  the  best  of 
it,  rudimentary  and  defective.  But  that,  unlike  present 
savages,  they  had  not  complex  customs  and  singular 
customs,  odd  and  seemingly  inexplicable  rules  guiding 
all  human  life.  And  the  reasons  for  these  conclusions 
as  to  a race  too  ancient  to  leave  a history,  but  not  too 
ancient  to  have  left  memorials,  are  briefly  these  : — - 
First,  that  we  cannot  imagine  a strong  reason  without 
attainments ; and,  plainly,  pre-historic  men  had  not 
attainments.  They  would  never  have  lost  them  if  they 
had.  It  is  utterly  incredible  that  whole  races  of  men 
in  the  most  distant  parts  of  the  world  (capable  oi 


114 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


counting,  for  they  quickly  learn  to  count)  should  have 
lost  the  art  of  counting,  if  they  had  ever  possessed  it. 
It  is  incredible  that  whole  races  could  lose  the  elements 
of  common  sense,  the  elementary  knowledge  as  to  things 
material  and  things  mental — the  Benjamin  Franklin 
philosophy — if  they  had  ever  known  it.  Without  some 
data  the  reasoning  faculties  of  man  cannot  work.  As 
Lord  Bacon  said,  the  mind  of  man  must  ‘work  upon 
stuff.5  And  in  the  absence  of  the  common  knowledge 
which  trains  us  in  the  elements  of  reason  as  far  as  we 
are  trained,  they  had  no  ‘ stuff.5  Even,  therefore,  if 
their  passions  were  not  absolutely  stronger  than  ours, 
relatively  they  were  stronger,  for  their  reason  was  weaker 
than  our  reason.  Again,  it  is  certain  that  races  of  men 
capable  of  postponing  the  present  to  the  future  (even  if 
such  races  were  conceivable  without  an  educated  reason) 
would  have  had  so  huge  an  advantage  in  the  struggles 
of  nations,  that  no  others -would  have  survived  them. 
A single  Australian  tribe  (really  capable  of  such  a habit, 
and  really  practising  it)  would  have  conquered  all 
Australia  almost  as  the  English  have  conquered  it. 
Suppose  a race  of  long-headed  Scotchmen,  even  as  igno- 
rant as  the  Australians,  and  they  would  have  got  from 
Torres  to  Bass’s  Straits,  no  matter  how  fierce  was  the 
resistance  of  the  other  Australians.  The  whole  territory 
would  have  been  theirs,  and  theirs  only.  We  cannot 
imagine  innumerable  races  to  have  lost,  if  they  had 
on co  had  it,  the  most  useful  of  all  habits  of  mind — the 


NATION-MAKING-. 


115 


habit  which  would  most  ensure  their  victory  in  the 
incessant  contests  which,  ever  since  they  began,  men 
have  carried  on  with  one  another  and  with  nature,  the 
habit,  which  in  historical  times  has  above  any  other 
received  for  its  possession  the  victory  in  those  contests. 
Thirdly,  we  may  be  sure  that  the  morality  of  pre-historic 
man  was  as  imperfect  and  as  rudimentary  as  his  reason. 
The  same  sort  of  arguments  apply  to  a self-restraining 
morality  of  a high  type  as  apply  to  a settled  postpone- 
ment of  the  present  to  the  future  upon  grounds  recom- 
mended by  argument.  Both  are  so  involved  in  difficult 
intellectual  ideas  (and  a high  morality  the  most  of  the 
two)  that  it  is  all  but  impossible  to  conceive  their 
existence  among  people  who  could  not  count  more  than 
five — who  had  only  the  grossest  and  simplest  forms  of 
language — who  had  no  kind  of  writing  or  reading — 
who,  as  it  has  been  roughly  said,  had  c no  pots  and  no 
pans’ — who  could  indeed  make  a fire,  but  who  could 
hardly  do  anything  else — who  could  hardly  command 
nature  any  further.  Exactly  also  like  a shrewd  far- 
sightedness, a sound  morality  on  elementary  transac- 
tions is  far  too  useful  a gift  to  the  human  race  ever  to 
have  been  thoroughly  lost  when  they  had  once  attained 
it.  But  innumerable  savages  have  lost  all  but  com- 
pletely many  of  the  moral  rules  most  conducive  to  tribal 
welfare.  There  are  many  savages  who  can  hardly  be 
said  to  care  for  human  life — who  have  scarcely  the 
family  feelings — who  are  eager  to  kill  all  old  people 


116 


xiiVSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


(their  own  parents  included)  as  soon  as  they  get  old  and 
become  a burden — who  have  scarcely  the  sense  of  truth 
— who,  probably  from  a constant  tradition  of  terror, 
wish  to  conceal  everything,  and  would  (as  observers  say) 
‘ rather  lie  than  not 5 — whose  ideas  of  marriage  are  so 
vague  and  slight  that  the  idea,  ‘ communal  marriage  5 
(in  which  all  the  women  of  the  tribe  are  common  to  all 
the  men,  and  them  only),  has  been  invented  to  denote 
it.  Now  if  we  consider  how  cohesive  and  how  forti- 
fying to  human  societies  are  the  love  of  truth,  and  the 
love  of  parents,  and  a stable  marriage  tie,  how  sure  such 
feelings  would  be  to  make  a tribe  which  possessed  them 
wholly  and  soon  victorious  over  tribes  which  were  desti- 
tute of  them,  we  shall  begin  to  comprehend  how  un- 
likely it  is  that  vast  masses  of  tribes  throughout  the 
world  should  have  lost  all  these  moral  helps  to  conquest, 
not  to  speak  of  others.  If  any  reasoning  is  safe  as  to 
pre-liistoric  man,  the  reasoning  which  imputes  to  him 
a deficient  sense  of  morals  is  safe,  for  all  the  arguments 
suggested  by  all  our  late  researches  converge  upon  it, 
and  concur  in  teaching  it. 

Nor  on  this  point  does  the  case  rest  wholly  on  recent 
investigations.  Many  years  ago  Mr.  Jowett  said  that 
the  classical  religions  bore  relics  of  the  ‘ ages  before 
morality.5  And  this  is  only  one  of  several  cases  in 
which  that  great  thinker  has  proved  by  a chance  ex- 
pression that  he  had  exhausted  impending  controversies 
years  before  they  arrived,  and  had  perceived  more  cr 


NATION-MAKING. 


117 


*ess  the  conclusion  at  which  the  disputants  would  arrive 
long  before  the  public  issue  was  joined.  There  is  no 
other  explanation  of  such  religions  than  this.  We  have 
but  to  open  Mr.  Gladstone’s  c Homer  ’ in  order  to  see 
with  how  intense  an  antipathy  a really  moral  age  would 
regard  the  gods  and  goddesses  of  Homer ; how  incon- 
ceivable it  is  that  a really  moral  age  should  first  have 
invented  and  then  bowed  down  before  them  ; how  plain 
it  is  (when  once  explained)  that  they  are  antiquities, 
like  an  English  court-suit,  or  a stcme- sacrificial  knife, 
for  no  one  would  use  such  things  as  implements  of 
ceremony,  except  those  who  had  inherited  them  from  a 
past  age,  when  there  was  nothing  better. 

Nor  is  there  anything  inconsistent  with  our  present 
moral  theories  of  whatever  kind  in  so  thinking  about 
our  ancestors.  The  intuitive  theory  of  morality,  which 
would  be  that  naturally  most  opposed  to  it,  has  lately 
taken  a new  development.  It  is  not  now  maintained 
that  all  men  have  the  same  amount  of  conscience. 
Indeed,  only  a most  shallow  disputant  who  did  not 
understand  even  the  plainest  facts  of  human  nature 
could  ever  have  maintained  it ; if  men  differ  in  anything 
they  differ  in  the  fineness  and  the  delicacy  of  their 
moral  intuitions,  however  we  may  suppose  those  feelings 
to  have  been  acquired.  We  need  not  go  as  far  as 
savages  to  learn  that  lesson  ; we  need  only  talk  to  the 
English  poor  or  to  our  own  servants,  and  we  shall  be 
taught  it  very  completely.  The  lower  classes  in  civi 


118 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


lised  countries,  like  all  classes  in  uncivilised  countries, 
are  clearly  wanting  in  the  nicer  part  of  those  feelings 
which,  taken  together,  we  call  the  sense  of  morality. 
All  this  an  intuitionist  who  knows  his  case  will  now 
admit,  but  he  will  add  that,  though  the  amount  of  the 
moral  sense  may  and  does  differ  in  different  persons, 
yet  that  as  far  as  it  goes  it  is  alike  in  all.  He  likens  it 
to  the  intuition  of  number,  in  which  some  savages  are 
so  defective  that  they  cannot  really  and  easily  count 
more  than  three.  Yet  as  far  as  three  his  intuitions 
are  the  same  as  those  of  civilised  people.  Unquestion- 
ably if  there  are  intuitions  at  all,  the  primary  truths  of 
number  are  such.  There  is  a felt  necessity  in  them  if 
in  anything,  and  it  would  be  pedantry  to  say  that  any 
proposition  of  morals  was  more  certain  than  that  five 
and  five  make  ten.  The  truths  of  arithmetic,  intuitive 
or  not,  certainly  cannot  be  acquired  independently  of 
experience  nor  can  those  of  morals  be  so  either.  Un- 
questionably they  were  aroused  in  life  and  by  experience, 
though  after  that  comes  the  difficult  and  ancient  con- 
troversy whether  anything  peculiar  to  them  and  not  to 
be  found  in  the  other  facts  of  life  is  superadded  to  them 
independently  of  experience  out  of  the  vigour  of  the 
mind  itself.  No  intuitionist,  therefore,  fears  to  speak 
of  the  conscience  of  his  pre-historic  ancestor  as  imper- 
fect, rudimentary,  or  hardly  to  be  discerned,  for  he  has 
to  admit  much  the  same  so  as  to  square  his  theory  to 
plain  modern  facts,  and  that  theory  in  the  modern  form 


NATION-MAKING. 


119 


may  consistently  be  held  along  with  them.  Of  course 
if  an  intuitionist  can  accept  this  conclusion  as  to  pre- 
historic men,  so  assuredly  may  Mr.  Spencer,  who  traces 
all  morality  back  to  our  inherited  ex}3erience  of  utility, 
or  Mr.  Darwin,  who  ascribes  it  to  an  inherited  sym- 
pathy, or  Mr.  Mill,  who  with  characteristic  courage 
undertakes  to  build  up  the  whole  moral  nature  of  man 
with  no  help  whatever  either  from  ethical  intuition  or 
from  physiological  instinct.  Indeed  of  the  everlasting 
questions,  such  as  the  reality  of  free  will,  or  the  nature 
of  conscience,  it  is,  as  I have  before  explained,  alto- 
gether inconsistent  with  the  design  of  these  papers  to 
speak.  They  have  been  discussed  ever  since  the  history 
of  discussion  begins ; human  opinion  is  still  divided, 
and  most  people  still  feel  many  difficulties  in  every  sug- 
gested theory,  and  doubt  if  they  have  heard  the  last 
word  of  argument  or  the  whole  solution  of  the  problem 
in  any  of  them.  In  the  interest  of  sound  knowledge  it 
is  essential  to  narrow  to  the  utmost  the  debatable  terri- 
tory; to  see  how  many  ascertained  facts  there  are 
which  are  consistent  with  all  theories,  how  many  may, 
as  foreign  lawyers  would  phrase  it,  be  equally  held  in 
condominium  by  them. 

But  though  in  these  great  characteristics  there  is 
reason  to  imagine  that  the  pre-historic  man — at  least 
the  sort  of  pre-historic  man  I am  treating  of,  the  man 
some  few  thousand  years  before  history  began,  and  not 
at  all,  at  least  not  necessarily,  the  primitive  man — was 
9 


120 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


identical  with,  a modern  savage,  in  another  respect  there 
is  equal  or  greater  reason  to  suppose  that  he  was  most 
unlike  a modern  savage.  A modern  savage  is  anything 
but  the  simple  being  which  philosophers  of  the 
eighteenth  century  imagined  him  to  be ; on  the  con- 
trary, his  life  is  twisted  into  a thousand  curious  habits; 
his  reason  is  darkened  by  a thousand  strange  preju- 
dices ; his  feelings  are  frightened  by  a thousand  cruel 
superstitions.  The  whole  mind  of  a modern  savage  is, 
so  to  say,  tattooed  over  with  monstrous  images  ; there 
is  not  a smooth  place  anywhere  about  it.  But  there  is 
no  reason  to  suppose  the  minds  cf  pre-historic  men  to 
be  so  cut  and  marked ; on  the  contrary,  the  creation  of 
these  habits,  these  superstitions,  these  prejudices,  must 
have  taken  ages.  In  his  nature,  it  may  be  said,  pre- 
historic man  was  the  same  as  a modern  savage ; it  is 
only  in  his  acquisition  that  he  was  different. 

It  may  be  objected  that  if  man  was  developed  out  of 
any  kind  of  animal  (and  this  is  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
which,  if  it  be  not  proved  conclusively,  has  great  proba- 
bility and  great  scientific  analogy  in  its  favour)  he 
would  necessarily  at  first  possess  animal  instincts ; 
that  these  would  only  gradually  be  lost;  that  in  the 
meantime  they  would  serve  as  a protection  and  an  aid, 
and  that  pre-historic  men,  therefore,  would  have  impor  - 
tant helps  and  feelings  which  existing  savages  have  not. 
And  probably  of  the  first  men,  the  first  beings  worthy 
to  be  so  called,  this  was  true:  they  had,  or  may  have 


NATION-MAKING. 


121 


had,  certain  remnants  of  instincts  which  aided  them  in 
the  struggle  of  existence,  and  as  reason  gradually  came 
these  instincts  may  have  waned  away.  Some  instincts 
certainly  do  wane  when  the  intellect  is  applied  steadily 
to  their  subject-matter.  The  curious  ‘ counting  boys,5 
the  arithmetical  prodigies,  who  can  work  by  a strange 
innate  faculty  the  most  wonderful  sums,  lose  that 
faculty,  always  partially,  sometimes  completely,  if  they 
are  taught  to  reckon  by  rule  like  the  rest  of  mankind. 
In  like  manner  I have  heard  it  said  that  a man  could 
soon  reason  himself  out  of  the  instinct  of  decency  if  he 
would  only  take  pains  and  work  hard  enough.  And 
perhaps  other  primitive  instincts  may  have  in  like 
manner  passed  away.  But  this  does  not  affect  my  ar- 
gument. I am  only  saying  that  these  instincts,  if  they 
ever  existed,  did  pass  away — that  there  was  a period, 
probably  an  immense  period  as  we  reckon  time  in 
human  history,  when  pre-historic  men  lived  much  as 
savages  live  now,  without  any  important  aids  and 
helps. 

The  proofs  of  this  are  to  be  found  in  the  great  works 
of  Sir  John  Lubbock  and  Mr.  Tylor,  of  which  I just 
now  spoke.  I can  only  bring  out  two  of  them  here. 
First,  it  is  plain  that  the  first  pre-historic  men  had  the 
flint  tools  which  the  lowest  savages  use,  and  we  can 
trace  a regular  improvement  in  the  finish  and  in  the 
efficiency  of  their  simple  instruments  corresponding  to 
that  which  we  see  this  day  in  the  upward  transition 


122 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


from  the  lowest  savages  to  the  highest.  Now  it  is  noi 
conceivable  that  a race  of  beings  with  valuable  instincts 
supporting  their  existence  and  supplying  their  wants 
would  need  these  simple  tools.  They  are  exactly  those 
needed  by  very  poor  people  who  have  no  instincts,  and 
those  were  used  by  such,  for  savages  are  the  poorest  of 
the  poor.  It  would  be  very  strange  if  these  same 
utensils,  no  more  no  less,  were  used  by  beings  whose 
discerning  instincts  made  them  in  comparison  altogether 
rich.  Such  a being  would  know  how  to  manage  without 
such  things,  or  if  it  wanted  any,  would  know  how  to 
make  better. 

And,  secondly,  on  the  moral  side  we  know  that  the 
pre-historic  age  was  one  of  much  licence,  and  the  proof 
is  that  in  that  age  descent  was  reckoned  through  the 
female  only,  just  as  it  is  among  the  lowest  savages. 
6 Maternity,5  it  has  been  said,  4 is  a matter  of  fact, 
paternity  is  a matter  of  opinion  ; 5 and  this  not  very 
refined  expression  exactly  conveys  the  connection  of 
the  lower  human  societies.  In  all  slave-owning  com- 
munities— in  Rome  formerly,  and  in  Virginia  yesterday 
— such  was  the  accepted  rule  of  law ; the  child  kept 
the  condition  of  the  mother,  whatever  that  condition 
was;  nobody  inquired  as  to  the  father;  the  law* 
once  for  all,  assumed  that  he  could  not  be  ascer- 
tained. Of  course  no  remains  exist  which  prove  this 
or  anything  else  about  the  morality  of  pre-historic 
man ; and  morality  can  only  be  described  by  remains 


NATION-MAKING. 


123 


amounting  to  a history.  But  one  of  the  axioms 
of  pre-historic  investigation  binds  us  to  accept 
this  as  the  morality  of  the  pre-historic  races  if  we 
receive  that  axiom.  It  is  plain  that  the  wide-spread 
absence  of  a characteristic  which  greatly  aids  the 
possessor  in  the  conflicts  between  race  and  race  pro- 
bably indicates  that  the  primary  race  did  not  possess 
that  quality.  If  one-armed  people  existed  almost 
everywhere  in  every  continent;  if  people  were  found 
in  every  intermediate  stage,  some  with  the  mere  germ 
of  the  second  arm,  some  with  the  second  arm  half- 
grown,  some  with  it  nearly  complete ; we  should  then 
argue — ‘ the  first  race  cannot  have  had  two  arms, 
because  men  have  always  been  fighting,  and  as  two 
arms  are  a great  advantage  m fighting,  one-armed  and 
half-armed  people  would  immediately  have  been  killed 
off*  the  earth ; they  never  could  have  attained  any 
numbers.  A diffused  deficiency  in  a warlike  power  is 
the  best  attainable  evidence  that  the  pre-historic  men 
did  not  possess  that  power.5  If  this  axiom  be  received 
it  is  palpably  applicable  to  the  marriage-bond  of  primi- 
tive races.  A cohesive  c family 5 is  the  best  germ  for  a 
campaigning  nation.  In  a Roman  family  the  boys, 
from  the  time  of  their  birth,  were  bred  to  a domestic 
despotism,  which  well  prepared  them  for  a subjection 
in  after  life  to  a military  discipline,  a military  drill, 
and  a military  despotism.  They  were  ready  to  obey 
their  generals  because  they  were  compelled  to  obey  theii 


124 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


fathers ; they  conquered  the  world  in  manhood  because 
as  children  they  were  bred  in  homes  where  the  tradition 
of  passionate  valour  was  steadied  by  the  habit  of 
implacable  order.  And  nothing  of  this  is  possible  in 
loosely-bound  family  groups  (if  they  can  be  called 
families  at  all)  where  the  father  is  more  or  less  uncer- 
tain, where  descent  is  not  traced  through  him,  where, 
that  is,  property  does  not  come  from  him,  where  such 
property  as  he  has  passes  to  his  sure  relations — to  his 
sister’s  children.  An  ill-knit  nation  which  does  not 
recognise  paternity  as  a legal  relation,  would  be  con- 
quered like  a mob  by  any  other  nation  which  had  a 
vestige  or  a beginning  of  the  patria  potestas . If,  there- 
fore, all  the  first  men  had  the  strict  morality  of  families, 
they  would  no  more  have  permitted  the  rise  of  semi - 
moral  nations  anywhere  in  the  world  than  the  Romans 
would  have  permitted  them  to  arise  in  Italy.  They 
would  have  conquered,  killed,  and  plundered  them 
before  they  became  nations  ; and  yet  semi-moral  na- 
tions exist  all  over  the  world. 

It  will  be  said  that  this  argument  proves  too  much. 
For  it  proves  that  not  only  the  somewhat-before- history 
men,  but  the  absolutely  first  men,  could  not  have 
had  close  family  instincts,  and  yet  if  they  were  like 
most  though  not  all  of  the  animals  nearest  to  man  they 
had  such  instincts.  There  is  a great  story  of  some 
African  chief  who  expressed  his  disgust  at  adhering  to 
one  wife,  by  saying  it  was  ‘like  the  monkeys.’  The 


NATION-MAKING. 


125 


semi-brutal  ancestors  of  man,  if  they  existed,  had  very 
likely  an  instinct  of  constancy  which  the  African  chief, 
and  others  like  him,  had  lost.  How,  then,  if  it  was  so 
beneficial,  could  they  ever  lose  it  ? The  answer  is 
plain  : they  could  lose  it  if  they  had  it  as  an  irrational 
propensity  and  habit,  and  not  as  a moral  and  rational 
feeling.  When  reason  came,  it  would  weaken  that 
habit  like  all  other  irrational  habits.  And  reason  is  a 
force  of  such  infinite  vigour — a victory-making  agent 
of  such  incomparable  efficiency — that  its  continually 
diminishing  valuable  instincts  will  not  matter  if  it 
grows  itself  steadily  all  the  while.  The  strongest  com- 
petitor wins  in  both  the  cases  we  are  imagining;  in  the 
first,  a race  with  intelligent  reason,  but  without  blind 
instinct,  beats  a race  with  that  instinct  but  without 
that  reason ; in  the  second,  a race  with  reason  and  high 
moral  feeling  beats  a race  with  reason  but  without  high 
moral  feeling.  And  the  two  are  palpably  consistent. 

There  is  every  reason,  therefore,  to  suppose  pre- 
historic man  to  be  deficient  in  much  of  sexual  morality, 
as  we  regard  that  morality.  As  to  the  detail  of  6 pri- 
mitive marriage  ’ or  f no  marriage/  for  that  is  pretty 
much  what  it  comes  to,  there  is  of  course  much  room 
for  discussion.  Both  Mr.  M’Clennan  and  Sir  John 
Lubbock  are  too  accomplished  reasoners  and  too  careful 
investigators  to  wish  conclusions  so  complex  and  re- 
fined as  theirs  to  be  accepted  all  in  a mass,  besides  that 
on  some  critical  points  the  two  differ.  But  the  main 


126 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


issue  is  not  dependent  on  nice  arguments.  Upon  broad 
grounds  we  may  believe  that  in  pre-historic  times  men 
fought  both  to  gain  and  to  keep  their  wives ; that  the 
strongest  man  took  the  best  wife  away  from  the  weaker 
man ; and  that  if  the  wife  was  restive,  did  not  like  the 
change,  her  new  husband  beat  her ; that  (as  in  Aus- 
tralia now)  a pretty  woman  was  sure  to  undergo  many 
such  changes,  and  her  back  to  bear  the  marks  of  many 
such  chastisements  ; that  in  the  principal  department  of 
human  conduct  (which  is  the  most  tangible  and  easily 
traced,  and  therefore  the  most  obtainable  specimen  of 
the  rest)  the  minds  of  pre-historic  men  were  not  so 
much  immoral  as  'immoral : they  did  not  violate  a rule 
of  conscience,  but  they  were  somehow  not  sufficiently 
developed  for  them  to  feel  on  this  point  any  conscience, 
or  for  it  to  prescribe  to  them  any  rule. 

The  same  argument  applies  to  religion.  There  are, 

' indeed,  many  points  of  the  greatest  obscurity,  both  in 
the  present  savage  religions  and  in  the  scanty  vestiges 
of  pre-historic  religion.  But  one  point  is  clear.  All 
savage  religions  are  -full  of  superstitions  founded  on 
luck.  Savages  believe  that  casual  omens  are  a sign  of 
coming  events ; that  some  trees  are  lucky,  that  some 
animals  are  lucky,  that  some  places  are  lucky,  that 
some  indifferent  actions — indifferent  apparently  and 
indifferent  really— are  lucky,  and  so  of  others  in  each 
class,  that  they  are  unlucky.  Nor  can  a savage  well 
distinguish  between  a sign  of  ‘ luck5  or  ill  luck,  as  we 


NATION-MAKING. 


127 


should  say,  and  a deity  which  causes  the  good  or  the 
ill ; the  indicating  precedent  and  the  causing  being  are 
to  the  savage  mind  much  the  same ; a steadiness  of 
head  far  beyond  savages  is  required  consistently  to  dis- 
tinguish them.  And  it  is  extremely  natural  that  they 
should  believe  so.  They  are  playing  a game — the  game 
of  life — with  no  knowledge  of  its  rules.  They  have  not 
an  idea  of  the  laws  of  nature ; if  they  want  to  cure  a 
man,  they  have  no  conception  at  all  of  true  scientific 
remedies.  If  they  try  anything  they  must  try  it  upon 
bare  chance.  The  most  useful  modern  remedies  were 
often  discovered  in  this  bare,  empirical  way.  What 
could  be  more  improbable — at  least,  for  what  could  a 
pre-historic  man  have  less  given  a good  reason — than 
that  some  mineral  springs  should  stop  rheumatic  pains, 
or  mineral  springs  make  wounds  heal  quickly?  And 
yet  the  chance  knowledge  of  the  marvellous  effect  of 
gifted  springs  is  probably  as  ancient  as  any  sound 
knowledge  as  to  medicine  whatever.  No  doubt  it  was 
mere  casual  luck  at  first  that  tried  these  springs  and 
found  them  answer.  Somebody  by  accident  tried  them 
and  by  that  accident  was  instantly  cured.  The  chance 
which  happily  directed  men  in  this  one  case,  misdi- 
rected them  in  a thousand  cases.  Some  expedition 
had  answered  when  the  resolution  to  undertake  it  was 
resolved  on  under  an  ancient  tree,  and  accordingly  that 
tree  became  lucky  and  sacred.  Another  expedition 
failed  when  a magpie  crossed  its  path,  and  a magpie 


128 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


was  said  to  be  unlucky.  A serpent  crossed  the  path  of 
another  expedition,  and  it  had  a marvellous  victory, 
and  accordingly  the  serpent  became  a sign  of  great 
luck  (and  what  a savage  cannot  distinguish  from  it — a 
potent  deity  which  makes  juck).  Ancient  medicine  is 
equally  unreasonable : as  late  down  as  the  Middle  Ages 
it  was  full  of'  superstitions  founded  on  mere  luck.  The 
collection  of  prescriptions  published  under  the  direction 
of  the  Master  of  the  Rolls  abounds  in  such  fancies  as 
we  should  call  them.  According  to  one  of  them,  unless 
I forget,  some  disease — a fever,  I think — is  supposed  to 
be  cured  by  placing  the  patient  between  two  halves  of  a 
bare  and  a pigeon  recently  killed.1  Nothing  can  be 
plainer  than  that  there  is  no  ground  for  this  kind  of 
treatment,  and  that  the  idea  of  it  arose  out  of  a chance 
hit,  which  came  right  and  succeeded.  There  was 
nothing  so  absurd  or  so  contrary  to  common  sense  as  we 
are  apt  to  imagine  about  it.  The  lying  between  two 
halves  of  a hare  or  a pigeon  was  a priori , and  to  the 
inexperienced  mind,  quite  as  likely  to  cure  disease  as 
the  drinking  certain  draughts  of  nasty  mineral  water. 


1 Headers  of  Scott’s  life  will  remember  that  an  admirer  of  his  in  humble 
life  proposed  to  cure  him  of  inflammation  of  the  bowels  by  making  him 
sleep  a whole  night  on  twelve  smooth  stones,  painfully  collected  by  the 
admirer  from  twelve  brooks,  which  was,  it  appeared,  a recipe  of  sovereign 
traditional  power.  Scott  gravely  told  the  proposer  that  he  had  mistaken 
the  charm,  and  that  the  stones  were  of  no  virtue  unless  wrapped  up  in  the 
petticoat  of  a widow  who  never  wished  to  marry  again,  and  as  no  such 
widow  seems  to  have  been  forthcoming,  he  escaped  the  remedy. 


NATION-MAKING. 


129 


Both,  somehow,  were  tried ; both  answered — that  is, 
both  were  at  the  first  time,  or  at  some  memorable  time, 
followed  by  a remarkable  recovery ; and  the  only 
difference  is,  that  the  curative  power  of  the  mineral  is 
persistent,  and  happens  constantly ; whereas,  on  an 
average  of  trials,  the  proximity  of  a hare  or  pigeon  is 
found  to  have  no  effect,  and  cures  take  place  as  often 
;n  cases  where  it  is  not  tried  as  in  cases  where  it  is. 
The  nature  of  minds  which  are  deeply  engaged  in 
watching  events  of  which  they  do  not  know  the  reason, 
is  to  single  out  some  fabulous  accompaniment  or  some 
wonderful  series  of  good  luck  or  bad  luck,  and  to  dread 
ever  after  that  accompaniment  if  it  brings  evil,  and  to 
love  it  and  long  for  it  if  it  brings  good.  All  savages 
are  in  this  position,  and  the  fascinating  effect  of 
striking  accompaniments  (in  some  single  case)  of  singu- 
lar good  fortune  and  singular  calamity,  is  one  great 
source  of  savage  religions. 

Gamblers  to  this  day  are,  with  respect  to  the  chance 
part  of  their  game,  in  much  the  same  plight  as  savages 
with  respect  to  the  main  events  of  their  whole  lives. 
And  we  well  know  how  superstitious  they  all  are.  To 
this  day  very  sensible  whist-players  have  a certain 
oelief — not,  of  course,  a fixed  conviction,  but  still  a 
certain  impression — that  there  is  6 luck  under  a black 
deuce/  and  will  half  mutter  some  not  very  gentle 
maledictions  if  they  turn  up  as  a trump  the  four  of 
clubs,  because  it  brings  ill-luck,  and  is  4 the  devil’s  bed- 


L30 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


post.5  Of  course  grown-up  gamblers  have  too  much 
general  knowledge,  too  much  organised  common  sense, 
to  prolong  or  cherish  such  ideas ; they  are  ashamed 
of  entertaining  them,  though,  nevertheless,  they  cannot 
entirely  drive  them  out  of  their  minds.  But  child - 
gamblers — a number  of  little  boys  set  to  play  loo — are 
just  in  the  position  of  savages,  for  their  fancy  is  still 
impressible,  and  they  have  not  as  yet  been  thoroughly 
subjected  to  the  confuting  experience  of  the  real  world; 
and  child  gamblers  have  idolatries — at  least  I know 
that  years  ago  a set  of  boy  loo-players,  of  whom  I was 
one,  had  considerable  faith  in  a certain  c pretty  fish,5 
which  wTas  larger  and  more  nicely  made  than  the  other 
fish  we  had.  We  gave  the  best  evidence  of  our  belief 
in  its  power  to  6 bring  luck;5  we  fought  for  it  (if  our 
elders  were  out  of  the  way)  ; we  offered  to  buy  it  with 
many  other  fish  from  the  envied  holder,  and  I am  sure 
I have  often  cried  bitterly  if  the  chance  of  the  game 
took  it  away  from  me.  Persons  who  stand  up  for  the 
dignity  of  philosophy,  if  any  such  there  still  are,  will 
say  that  I ought  not  to  mention  this,  because  it  seems 
trivial ; but  the  more  modest  spirit  of  modern  thought 
plainly  teaches,  if  it  teaches  anything,  the  cardinal 
value  of  occasional  little  facts.  I do  not  hesitate  to 
say  that  many  learned  and  elaborate  explanations  of 
the  totem — the  ‘ clan 5 deity — the  beast  or  bird  who 
in  some  supernatural  way,  attends  to  the  clan  and 
watches  uver  it— do  not  seem  to  me  to  be  nearly  as 


NATION-MAKING-. 


131 


akin  to  the  reality  as  it  works  and  lives  among  the 
lower  races,  as  the  4 pretty  fish  ’ of  my  early  boyhood. 
And  very  naturally  so,  for  a grave  philosopher  is  sepa- 
rated from  primitive  thought  by  the  whole  length  of 
human  culture ; but  an  impressible  child  is  as  near  to, 
and  its  thoughts  are  as  much  like,  that  thought  as  any- 
thing can  now  be. 

The  worst  of  these  superstitions  is  that  they  are 
easy  to  make  and  hard  to  destroy.  A single  run 
of  luck  has  made  the  fortune  of  many  a charm 
and  many  idols.  I doubt  if  even  a single  run  of  luck 
be  necessary.  I am  sure  that  if  an  elder  boy  said  that 
4 the  pretty  fish  was  lucky — of  course  it  was/  all  the 
lesser  boys  would  believe  it,  and  in  a week  it  would  be 
an  accepted  idol.  And  I suspect  the  Nestor  of  a savage 
tribe — the  aged  repository  of  guiding  experience — 
would  have  an  equal  power  of  creating  superstitions. 
But  if  once  created  they  are  most  difficult  to  eradicate. 
If  any  one  said  that  the  amulet  was  of  certain  efficacy 
— that  it  always  acted  whenever  it  was  applied — it 
would  of  course  be  very  easy  to  disprove  ; but  no  one 
ever  said  that  the  4 pretty  fish  5 always  brought  luck  ; it 
was  only  said  that  it  did  so  on  the  whole,  and  that  if 
you  had  it  you  were  more  likely  to  be  lucky  than  if  you 
were  without  it.  But  it  requires  a long  table  of  statis- 
tics of  the  results  of  games  to  disprove  this  thoroughly ; 
and  by  the  time  people  can  make  tables  they  are  already 
above  such  beliefs,  and  do  not  need  to  have  them  dis- 


[32 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


proved.  Nor  in  many  cases  where  omens  or  amulets 
are  used  would  such  tables  be  easy  to  make,  for  the 
data  could  not  be  found  ; and  a rash  attempt  to  subdue 
the  superstition  by  a striking  instance  may  easily  end 
in  confirming  it.  Francis  Newman,  in  the  remarkable 
narrative  of  his  experience  as  a missionary  in  Asia, 
gives  a curious  example  of  this.  As  he  was  setting  out 
on  a distant  and  somewhat  hazardous  expedition,  his 
native  servants  tied  round  the  neck  of  the  mule  a small 
bag  supposed  to  be  of  preventive  and  mystic  virtue. 
As  the  place  was  crowded  and  a whole  townspeople 
looking  on,  Mr.  Newman  thought  that  he  would  take 
an  opportunity  of  disproving  the  superstition.  So  he 
made  a long  speech  of  explanation  in  his  best  Arabic, 
and  cut  off  the  bag,  to  the  horror  of  all  about  him. 
But  as  ill-fortune  would  have  it,  the  mule  had  not  got 
thirty  yards  up  the  street  before  she  put  her  foot  into  a 
hole  and  broke  her  leg ; upon  which  all  the  natives  were 
confirmed  in  their  former  -faith  in  the  power  of  the 
bag,  and  said,  6 You  see  now  what  happens  to  un- 
believers.5 

Now  the  present  point  as  to  these  superstitions  is 
their  military  inexpediency.  A nation  which  was 
moved  by  these  superstitions  as  to  luck  would  be  at  the 
mercy  of  a nation,  in  other  respects  equal,  which  was 
not  subject  to  them.  In  historical  times,  as  we  know, 
the  panic  terror  at  eclipses  has  been  the  ruin  of  the 
armies  which  have  felt  it ; or  has  made  them  delay  to 


NATION-MAKING. 


133 


do  something  necessary,  or  rush  to  do  something  de- 
structive. The  necessity  of  consulting  the  auspices, 
while  it  was  sincerely  practised  and  before  it  became  a 
trick  for  disguising  foresight,  was  in  classical  history 
very  dangerous.  And  much  worse  is  it  with  savages, 
whose  life  is  one  of  omens,  who  must  always  consult 
their  sorcerers,  wlio  may  be  turned  this  way  or  that  by 
some  chance  accident,  who,  if  they  were  intellectually 
able  to  frame  a consistent  military  policy — and  some 
savages  in  war  see  farther  than  in  anything  else — are 
yet  liable  to  be  put  out,  distracted,  confused,  and  turned 
aside  in  the  carrying  out  of  it,  because  some  event,  really 
innocuous  but  to  their  minds  foreboding,  arrests  and 
frightens  them.  A religion  full  of  omens  is  a military 
misfortune,  and  will  bring  a nation  to  destruction  if  set 
to  fight  with  a nation  at  all  equal  otherwise,  who  had 
a religion  without  omens.  Clearly  then,  if  all  early 
men  unanimously,  or  even  much  the  greater  number  of 
early  men,  had  a religion  without  omens,  no  religion,  or 
scarcely  a religion,  anywhere  in  the  world  could  have 
come  into  existence  with  omens;  the  immense  majority 
possessing  the  superior  military  advantage,  the  small 
minority  destitute  of  it  would  have  been  crushed  out 
and  destroyed.  But,  on  the  contrary,  all  over  the  world 
religions  with  omens  once  existed,  in  most  they  still 
exist;  all  savages  have  them,  and  deep  in  the  most 
ancient  civilisations  we  find  the  plainest  traces  of  them. 
Unquestionably  therefore  the  pre-historic  religion  was 


134 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


like  tliat  of  savages — viz.,  in  this  that  it  largely  con- 
sisted in  the  watching  of  omens  and  in  the  worship  of 
lucky  beasts  and  things,  which  are  a sort  of  embodied 
and  permanent  omens. 

It  may  indeed  be  objected — an  analogous  objection 
was  taken  as  to  the  ascertained  moral  deficiencies  of 
pre -historic  mankind — that  if  this  religion  of  omens 
was  so  pernicions  and  so  likely  to  ruin  a race,  no  race 
would  ever  have  acquired  it.  But  it  is  only  likely  to 
ruin  a race  contending  with  another  race  otherwise 
equal.  The  fancied  discovery  of  these  omens — not  an 
extravagant  thing  in  an  early  age,  as  I have  tried  to 
show,  not  a whit  then  to  be  distinguished  as  improbable 
from  the  discovery  of  healing  herbs  or  springs  which 
pre-historic  men  also  did  discover — the  discovery  of 
omens  was  an  act  of  reason  as  far  as  it  went.  And  if 
in  reason  the  omen-finding  race  were  superior  to  the 
races  in  conflict  with  them,  the  omen- finding  race  would 
win,  and  we  may  conjecture  that  omen-finding  races 
were  thus  superior  since  they  won  and  prevailed  in 
every  latitude  and  in  every  zone. 

In  all  particulars  therefore  we  would  keep  to  our 
formula,  and  say  that  pre-historic  man  was  substantially 
a savage  like  present  savages,  in  morals,  intellectual 
attainments,  and  in  religion ; but  that  he  differed  in 
this  from  our  present  savages,  that  he  had  not  had  time 
to  ingrain  his  nature  so  deeply  with  bad  habits,  and  to 
impress  bad  beliefs  so  unalterably  on  his  mind  as  they 


NATION-MAKING. 


135 


have.  They  have  had  ages  to  fix  the  stain  on  them- 
selves, but  primitive  man  was  yonnger  and  had  no  such 
time. 

I have  elaborated  the  evidence  for  this  conclusion  at 
what  may  seem  needless  and  tedious  length,  but  I have 
done  so  on  account  of  its  importance.  If  we  accept  it, 
and  if  we  are  sure  of  it,  it  will  help  us  to  many  most 
important  conclusions.  Some  of  these  I have  dwelt 
upon  in  previous  papers,  but  I will  set  them  down 
again. 

First,  it  will  in  part  explain  to  us  what  the  world  was 
about,  so  to  speak,  before  history.  It  was  making,  so 
to  say,  the  intellectual  consistence — the  connected  and 
coherent  habits,  the  preference  of  equable  to  violent  en- 
joyment, the  abiding  capacity  to  prefer,  if  required,  the 
future  to  the  present,  the  mental  pre-requisites  without 
which  civilisation  could  not  begin  to  exist,  and  without 
which  it  would  soon  cease  to  exist  even  had  it  begun. 
The  primitive  man,  like  the  present  savage,  had  not 
these  pre-requisites,  but,  unlike  the  present  savage,  he 
was  capable  of  acquiring  them  and  of  being  trained  in 
them,  for  his  nature  was  still  soft  and  still  impressible, 
and  possibly,  strange  as  it  may  seem  to  say,  his  out- 
ward circumstances  were  more  favourable  to  an  attain- 
ment of  civilisation  than  those  of  our  present  savages. 
A t any  rate,  the  pre-historic  times  were  spent  in  making 
men  capable  of  writing  a history,  and  having  something 


10 


136 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


to  put  in  it  when  it  is  written,  and  we  can  see  how  it 
was  done. 

Two  preliminary  processes  indeed  there  are  which 
seem  inscrutable.  There  was  some  strange  preliminary 
process  by  which  the  main  races  of  men  were  formed ; 
they  began  to  exist  very  early,  and  except  by  inter- 
mixture no  new  ones  have  been  formed  since.  It  was  a 
process  singularly  active  in  early  ages,  and  singularly 
quiescent  in  later  ages.  Such  differences  as  exist  be- 
tween the  Aryan,  the  Turanian,  the  negro,  the  red  man, 
and  the  Australian,  are  differences  greater  altogether 
than  any  causes  now  active  are  capable  of  creating  in 
present  men,  at  least  in  any  way  explicable  by  us.  And 
there  is,  therefore,  a strong  presumption  that  (as  great 
authorities  now  hold)  these  differences  were  created  be- 
fore the  nature  of  men,  especially  before  the  mind  and  the 
adaptive  nature  of  men  had  taken  their  existing  consti- 
tution. And  a second  condition  precedent  of  civilisation 
seems,  at  least  to  me,  to  have  been  equally  inherited,  if 
the  doctrine  of  evolution  be  true,  from  some  previous 
state  or  condition.  I at  least  find  it  difficult  to  concei  ve 
of  men,  at  all  like  the  present  men,  unless  existing-  in 
something  like  families,  that  is,  in  groups  avowedly 
connected,  at  least  on  the  mother’s  side,  and  probably 
always  with  a vestige  of  connection,  more  or  less,  on 
the  father’s  side,  and  unless  these  groups  were  like 
many  animals,  gregarious,  under  a leader  more  or  less 
fixed.  It  is  almost  beyond  imagination  how  man,  as  we 


NATION-MAKING. 


187 


Know  man,  could  by  any  sort  of  process  have  gained 
this  step  in  civilisation.  And  it  is  a great  advantage, 
to  say  the  least  of  it,  in  the  evolution  theory  that  it 
enables  us  to  remit  this  difficulty  to  a pre-existing 
period  in  nature,  where  other  instincts  and  powers  th^u 
our  present  ones  may  perhaps  have  come  into  play,  and 
where  our  imagination  can  hardly  travel.  At  any  rate, 
for  the  present  I may  assume  these  two  steps  in  human 
progress  made,  and  these  two  conditions  realized. 

The  rest  of  the  way,  if  we  grant  these  two  conditions, 
is  plainer.  The  first  thing  is  the  erection  of  what  we 
may  call  a custom -making  power,  that  is,  of  an  authority 
which  can  enforce  a fixed  rule  of  life,  which,  by  means 
of  that  fixed  rule,  can  in  some  degree  create  a calculable 
future,  which  can  make  it  rational  to  postpone  present 
violent  but  momentary  pleasure  for  future  continual 
pleasure,  because  it  ensures,  what  else  is  not  sure,  that 

Iif  the  sacrifice  of  what  is  in  hand  be  made,  enjoyment 
of  the  contingent  expected  recompense  will  be  received. 
Of  course  I am  not  saying  that  we  shall  find  in  early 
society  any  authority  of  which  these  shall  be  the 
motives.  We  must  have  travelled  ages  (unless  all  our 
evidence  be  wrong)  from  the  first  men  before  there  was 
a comprehension  of  such  motives.  I only  mean  that  the 
first  thing  in  early  society  was  an  authority  of  whose 
actiohriffits  shall-  be  " the  result,  little  as  it  knew  what  it 
was  doing,  little  as  it  would  have  cared  if  it  had  known. 
The  conscious  end  of  early  societies  was  not  at  all,  or 


138 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


scarcely  at  all,  the  protection  of  life  and  property,  as  it 
was  assumed  to  be  by  the  eighteenth-century  theory  of 
government.  Even  in  early  historical  ages — in  the 
youth  of  the  human  race,  not  its  childhood — such  is  not 
the  nature  of  early  states.  Sir  Henry  Maine  has  taught 
us  that  the  earliest  subject  of  jurisprudence  is  not  the 
separate  property  of  the  individual,  but  the  common 
property  of  the  family  group ; what  we  should  call 
private  property  hardly  then  existed ; or  if  it  did,  was 
so  small  as  to  be  of  no  importance : it  was  like  the 
things  little  children  are  now  allowed  to  call  their  own, 
which  they  feel  it  very  hard  to  have  taken  from  them, 
but  which  they  have  no  real  right  to  hold  and  keep. 
Such  is  our  earliest  property-law,  and  our  earliest  life- 
law  is  that  the  lives  of  all  members  of  the  family  group 
were  at  the  mercy  of  the  head  of  the  group.  As  fai  as 
the  individual  goes,  neither  his  goods  nor  his  existence 
were  protected  at  all.  And  this  may  teach  us  that  some- 
thing else  was  lacked  in  early  societies  besides  what  in 
our  societies  we  now  think  of. 

I do  not  think  I put  this  too  high  when  I say  that  a 
most  important  if  not  the  most  important  object  of  early 
legislation  was  the  enforcement  of  lucky  rites.  I do  not 
like  to  say  religious  rites,  because  that  would  involve 
me  in  a great  controversy  as  to  the  power,  or  even  the 
existence,  of  early  religions.  But  there  is  no  savage 
tribe  without  a notion  of  luck ; and  perhaps  there  is 
hardly  any  which  has  not  a conception  of  luck  for  the 


NATION-MAKING. 


139 


tribe  as  a tribe,  of  which  each  member  has  not  some 
such  a belief  that  his  own  action  or  the  action  of  any 
other  member  of  it — that  he  or  the  others  doing  any- 
thing which  was  unlucky  or  would  bring  a ‘curse5 — 
might  cause  evil  not  only  to  himself,  but  to  all  the 
tribe  as  well.  I have  said  so  much  about  ‘ luck  ’ and 
about  its  naturalness  before,  that  I ought  to  say  nothing 
again.  But  I must  add  that  the  contagiousness  of  the 
idea  of  ‘ luck  5 is  remarkable.  It  does  not  at  all,  like  the 
notion  of  desert,  cleave  to  the  doer.  There  are  people 
to  this  day  who  would  not  permit  in  their  house  people 
to  sit  down  thirteen  to  dinner.  They  do  not  expect 
any  evil  to  themselves  particularly  for  permitting  it 
or  sharing  in  it,  but  they  cannot  get  out  of  their  heads 
the  idea  that  some  one  or  more  of  the  number  will 
come  to  harm  if  the  thing  is  done.  This  is  what  Mr. 
Tylor  calls  survival  in  culture.  The  faint  belief  in  the 
corporate  liability  of  these  thirteen  is  the  feeble  relic 
and  last  dying  representative  of  that  great  principle  of 
corporate  liability  to  good  and  ill  fortune  which  has 
filled  such  an  immense  place  in  the  world. 

The  traces  of  it  are  endless.  You  can  hardly  take  up 
a book  of  travels  in  rude  regions  without  finding  ‘ I 
wanted  to  do  so  and  so.  But  I was  not  permitted,  for 
the  natives  feared  it  might  bring  ill  luck  on  the  “ party,” 
or  perhaps  the  tribe.5  Mr.  Galton,  for  instance,  could 
hardly  feed  his  people.  The  Damaras,  he  says,  have 
numberless  superstitions  about  meat  which  are  very 


140 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


troublesome.  In  the  first  place,  each  tribe,  or  rather 
family,  is  prohibited  from  eating  cattle  of  certain 
colours,  savages  c who  come  from  the  sun  9 eschewing 
sheep  spotted  in  a particular  way,  which  those  6 who 
come  from  the  rain 5 have  no  objection  to.  6 As,5  he 
says,  ‘ there  are  five  or  six  eandas  or  descents,  and  I 
had  men  from  most  of  them  with  me,  I could  hardly 
kill  a sheep  that  everybody  would  eat ; 5 and  he  could 
not  keep  his  meat,  for  it  had  to  be  given  away  because 
it  was  commanded  by  one  superstition,  nor  buy  milk, 
the  staple  food  of  those  parts,  because  it  was  prohibited 
by  another.  And  so  on  without  end.  Doing  anything 
unlucky  is  in  their  idea  what  putting  on  something 
that  attracts  the  electric  fluid  is  in  fact.  You  cannot 
be  sure  that  harm  will  not  be  done,  not  only  to  the 
person  in  fault,  but  to  those  about  him  too.  As  in  the 
Scriptural  phrase,  doing  what  is  of  evil  omen  is  6 like 
one  that  letteth  out  water.5  He  cannot  tell  what  are 
the  consequences  of  his  act,  who  will  share  them,  or 
how  they  can  be  prevented. 

In  the  earliest  historical  nations  I need  not  say  that 
the  corporate  liabilities  of  states  is  to  a modern  student 
their  most  curious  feature.  The  belief  is  indeed  raised 
far  above  the  notion  of  mere  ‘ luck,5  because  there  is  a 
distinct  belief  in  gods  or  a god  whom  the  act  offends. 
But  the  indiscriminate  character  of  the  punishment 
still  survives  ; not  only  the  mutilator  of  the  Hermse, 
but  all  the  Athenians — not  only  the  violator  of  the 


NATION-MAKING. 


Ill 


rites  of  tlie  Bona  dea , but  all  the  Romans — are  liable 
to  the  curse  engendered  ; and  so  all  through  ancient 
history.  The  strength  of  the  corporate  anxiety  so 
created  is  known  to  every  one.  Not  only  was  it  greater 
than  any  anxiety  about  personal  property,  but  it  was 
immeasurably  greater.  Naturally,  even  reasonably  we 
may  say,  it  was  greater.  The  dread  of  the  powers  of 
nature,  or  of  the  beings  who  rule  those  powers,  is 
properly,  upon  grounds  of  reason,  as  much  greater  than 
any  other  dread  as  the  might  of  the  powers  of  nature  is 
superior  to  that  of  any  other  powers.  If  a tribe  or 
a nation  have,  by  a contagious  fancy,  come  to  believe 
that  the  doing  of  any  one  thing  by  any  number  will  be 
6 unlucky,5  that  is,  will  bring  an  intense  and  vast  lia- 
bility on  them  all,  then  that  tribe  and  that  nation  will 
prevent  the  doing  of  that  thing  more  than  anything 
else.  They  will  deal  with  the  most  cherished  chief  who 
even  by  chance  should  do  it,  as  in  a similar  case  the 
sailors  dealt  with  Jonah. 

I do  not  of  course  mean  that  this  strange  condition  of 
mind  as  it  seems  to  us  was  the  sole  source  of  early  cus- 
toms. On  the  contraiy,  man  might  be  described  as  a 
custom-making  animal  with  more  justice  than  by  many 
of  the  short  descriptions.  In  whatever  way  a man  has 
lone  anything  once,  he  has  a tendency  to  do  it  again  : 
if  he  has  done  it  several  times  he  has  a great  tendency 
so  to  do  it,  and  what  is  more-,  he  has  a great  tendency 
to  make  others  do  it  also.  He  transmits  his  formed 


142 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


customs  to  liis  children  by  example  and  by  teaching. 
This  is  true  now  of  human  nature,  and  will  always  be 
true,  no  doubt.  But  what  is  peculiar  in  early  societies 
is  that  over  most  of  these  customs  there  grows  sooner 
or  later  a semi-supernatural  sanction.  The  whole  com- 
munity is  possessed  with  the  idea  that  if  the  primal 
usages  of  the  tribe  be  broken,  harm  unspeakable  will 
happen  in  ways  you  cannot  think  of,  and  from  sources 
you  cannot  imagine.  As  people  now-a-days  believe  that 
‘ murder  will  out,5  and  that  great  crime  will  bring  even 
an  earthly  punishment,  so  in  early  times  people  believed 
that  for  any  breach  of  sacred  custom  certain  retribution 
would  happen.  To  this  day  many  semi-civilised  races 
have  great  difficulty  in  regarding  any  arrangement  as 
binding  and  conclusive  unless  they  can  also  manage  to 
look  at  it  as  an  inherited  usage.  Sir  H.  Maine,  in  his 
last  work,  gives  a most  curious  case.  The  English 
Government  in  India  has  in  many  cases  made  new  arid 
great  works  of  irrigation,  of  which  no  ancient  Indian 
Government  ever  thought ; and  it  has  generally  left  it  to 
the  native  village  community  to  say  what  share  each 
man  of  the  village  should  have  in  the  water ; and  the 
village  authorities  have  accordingly  laid  down  a series 
of  most  minute  rules  about  it.  But  the  peculiarity  is 
that  in  no  case  do  these  rules  ‘ purport  to  emanate  from 
the  personal  authority  of  their  author  or  authors,  which 
rests  on  grounds  of  reason  not  on  grounds  of  innocence 
and  sanctity ; nor  do  they  assume  to  be  dictated  by  a 


NATION-MAKING. 


1 13 


sense  of  equity  ; there  is  always,  I am  assured,  a sort  of 
fiction  under  which  some  customs  as  to  the  distribution 
of  water  are  supposed  to  have  emanated  from  a remote 
antiquity,  although,  in  fact,  no  such  artificial  supply 
had  ever  been  so  much  as  thought  of.’  So  difficult  does 
this  ancient  race — like,  probably,  in  this  respect  so 
much  of  the  ancient  world — find  it  to  imagine  a xule 
which  is  obligatory,  but  not  traditional. 

The  ready  formation  of  custom-making  groups  in 
early  society  must  have  been  greatly  helped  by  the 
easy  divisions  of  that  society.  Much  of  the  world — all 
Europe,  for  example — was  then  covered  bj^the  primeval 
forest;  men  had  only  conquered,  and  as  yet  could  only 
conquer,  a few  plots  and  corners  from  it.  These  narrow 
spaces  were  soon  exhausted,  and  if  numbers  grew  some 
of  the  new  people  must  move.  Accordingly,  migrations 
were  constant,  and  were  necessary.  And  these  migra- 
tions were  not  like  those  of  modern  times.  There  was 
no  such  feeling  as  binds  even  Americans  who  hate,  or 
speak  as  if  they  hated,  the  present  political  England — 
nevertheless  to  ‘the  old  home.5  There  was  then  no 
organised  means  of  communication — no  practical  com- 
munication, we  may  say,  between  parted  members  of 
the  same  group  ; those  who  once  went  out  from  the 
parent  society  went  out  for  ever ; they  left  no  abiding 
remembrance,  and  they  kept  no  abiding  regard.  Even 
the  language  of  the  parent  tribe  and  of  the  descended 
tiibe  would  differ  in  a generation  or  tvs  o.  There  being 


144 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


no  written  literature  and  no  spoken  intercourse,  the 
speech  of  both  would  vary  (the  speech  of  such  com- 
munities is  always  varying),  and  would  vary  in  different 
directions.  One  set  of  causes,  events,  and  associations 
would  act  on  one,  and  another  set  on  another ; sectional 
differences  would  soon  arise,  and,  for  speaking  purposes, 
what  philologists  call  a dialectical  difference  often 
amounts  to  real  and  total  difference  : no  connected 
interchange  of  thought  is  possible  any  longer.  Sepa- 
rate groups  soon  6 set  up  house ; 5 the  early  societies 
begin  a new  set  of  customs,  acquire  and  keep  a distinct 
and  special  6 luck.5 

If  it  were  not  for  this  facility  of  new  formations,  one 
good  or  bad  custom  would  long  since  have  4 corrupted  5 
the  world ; but  even  this  would  not  have  been  enough  but 
for  those  continual  wars,  of  which  I have  spoken  at  such 
length  in  the  essay  on  6 The  Use  of  Conflict,5  that  I need 
say  nothing  now.  These  are  by  their  incessant  fractures 
of  old  images,  and  by  their  constant  infusion  of  new  ele- 
ments, the  real  regenerators  of  society.  And  whatever  be 
the  truth  or  falsehood  of  the  general  dislike  to  mixed 
and  half-bred  races,  no  such  suspicion  was  probably  ap- 
plicable to  the  early  mixtures  of  primitive  society.  Sup- 
posing, as  is  likely,  each  great  aboriginal  race  to  have 
had  its  own  quarter  of  the  world  (a  quarter,  as  it  would 
seem,  corresponding  to  the  special  quarters  in  which 
plants  and  animals  are  divided),  then  the  immense 
majority  of  the  mixtures  would  be  between  men  of 


NATION-MAKING. 


145 


different  tribes  but  of  the  same  stock,  and  this  no  one 
would  object  to,  but  every  one  would  praise. 

In  general,  too,  the  conquerors  would  be  better  than 
the  conquered  (most  merits  in  early  society  are  more  or 
^ less  military  merits),  but  they  would  not  be  very  much 
better,  for  the  lowest  steps  in  the  ladder  of  civilisation 
are  very  steep,  and  the  effort  to  mount  them  is  slow  and 
tedious.  And  this  is  probably  the  better  if  they  are  to 
produce  a good  and  quick  effect  in  civilising  those  they 
have  conquered.  The  experience  of  the  English  in 
India  shows — if  it  shows  anything — that  a highly 
civilised  race  may  fail  in  producing  a rapidly  excellent 
effect  on  a less  civilised  race,  because  it  is  too  good  and 
too  different.  The  two  are  not  en  rapport  together ; the 
merits  of  the  one  are  not  the  merits  prized  by  the  other ; 
the  manner-language  of  the  one  is  not  the  manner-lan- 
guage of  the  other.  The  higher  being  is  not  and  cannot 
be  a model  for  the  lower;  he  could  not  mould  himself 
on  it  if  he  would,  and  would  not  if  he  could.  Conse- 
quently, the  two  races  have  long  lived  together,  ‘ near 
and  yet  far  off,’  daily  seeing  one  another  and  daily 
interchanging  superficial  thoughts,  but  in  the  depths  of 
their  mind  separated  by  a whole  era  of  civilisation,  and  so 
affecting  one  another  only  a little  in  comparison  with 
what  might  have  been  hoped.  But  in  early  societies 
there  were  no  such  great  differences,  and  the  rather 
superior  conqueror  must  . have  easily  improved  the 
rather  inferior  conquered. 


146 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


It  is  m the  interior  of  these  customary  groups  that 
national  characters  are  formed.  As  I wrote  a whole 
essay  on  the  manner  of  this  before,  I cannot  speak  of  it 
now.  By  proscribing  nonconformist  members  for  gene- 
rations, and  cherishing  and  rewarding  conformist  mem- 
bers, nonconformists  become  fewer  and  fewer,  and 
conformists  more  and  more.  Most  men  mostly  imitate 
what  they  see,  and  catch  the  tone  of  what  they  hear, 
and  so  a settled  type — a persistent  character — is  formed. 
Nor  is  the  process  wholly  mental.  I cannot  agree, 
though  the  greatest  authorities  say  it,  that  no  c un- 
conscious selection  5 has  been  at  work  at  the  breed  of 
man.  If  neither  that  nor  conscious  selection  has  been 
at  work,  how  did  there  come  to  be  these  breeds,  and 
such  there  are  in  the  greatest  numbers,  though  we  call 
them  nations  ? In  societies  tyrannically  customary,  un- 
congenial minds  become  first  cowed,  then  melancholy, 
then  out  of  health,  and  at  last  die.  A Shelley  in  New 
England  could  hardly  have  lived,  and  a race  of  Shelleys 
would  have  been  impossible.  Mr.  Galton  wishes  that 
breeds  of  men  should  be  created  by  matching  men  with 
marked  characteristics  with  women  of  like  characteris- 
tics. But  surely  this  is  what  nature  has  been  doing 
time  out  of  mind,  and  most  in  the  rudest  nations  and 
hardest  times.  Nature  disheartened  in  each  generation 
the  ill-fitted  members  of  each  customary  group,  so  de- 
prived them  of  their  full  vigour,  or,  if  they  were  weakly, 
killed  them.  The  Spartan  character  wras  formed  be- 


NATION-MAKING. 


147 


cause  nune  but  people  with  a Spartan  make  of  mind 
could  endure  a Spartan  existence.  The  early  Roman 
character  was  so  formed  too.  Perhaps  all  very  marked 
national  characters  can  be  traced  back  to  a time  of 
rigid  and  pervading  discipline.  In  modern  times,  when 
society  is  more  tolerant,  new  national  characters  are 
neither  so  strong,  so  featurely,  nor  so  uniform. 

In  this  manner  society  was  occupied  in  pre-liistoric 
times, — it  is  consistent  with  and  explicable  by  our 
general  principle  as  to  savages,  that  society  should  for 
ages  have  been  so  occupied,  strange  as  that  conclusion 
is,  and  incredible  as  it  would  be,  if  we  had  not  been 
taught  by  experience  to  believe  strange  things. 

Secondly,  this  principle  and  this  conception  of  pre- 
historic times  explain  to  us  the  meaning  and  the  origin 
of  the  oldest  and  strangest  of  social  anomalies — an 
anomaly  which  is  among  the  first  things  history  tells 
us — the  existence  ^of  caste  nations.  Nothing  is  at  first 
sight  stranger  than  the  aspect  of  those  communities 
where  several  nations  seem  to  be  bound  up  together — 
where  each  is  governed  by  its  own  rule  of  law,  where 
no  one  pays  any  deference  to  the  rule  of  law  of  any  of 
the  others.  But  if  our  principles  be  true,  these  are  just 
the  nations  most  likely  to  last,  which  would  have  a 
special  advantage  in  early  times,  and  would  probably 
not  only  maintain  themselves,  but  conquer  and  kill 
out  others  also.  The  characteristic  necessity  of  early 
society  as  wre  have  seen,  is  strict  usage  and  binding 


148 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


coercive  custom.  But  the  obvious  result  and  inevitable 
evil  of  that  is  monotony  in  society;  no  one  can  be 
much  different  from  his  fellows,  or  can  cultivate  his 
difference. 

Such  societies  are  necessarily  weak  from  the  want  of 
variety  in  their  elements.  But  a caste  nation  is  various 
and  composite ; and  has  in  a mode  suited  to  early 
societies  the  constant  co-operation  of  contrasted  persons, 
which  in  a later  age  is  one  of  the  greatest  triumphs  of 
civilisation.  In  a primitive  age  the  division  between 
the  warrior  caste  and  the  priestly  caste  is  especially 
advantageous.  Little  popular  and  little  deserving  to 
be  popular  now-a-days  as  are  priestly  hierarchies,  most 
probably  the  beginnings  of  science  were  made  in 
such,  and  were  for  ages  transmitted  in  such.  An 
intellectual  class  was  in  that  age  only  possible  when 
it  was  protected  by  a notion  that  whoever  hurt  them 
would  certainly  be  punished  by  heaven.  In  this  class 
apart  discoveries  were  slowly  made  and  some  beginning 
of  mental  discipline  was  slowly  matured.  But  such  a 
community  is  necessarily  unwarlike,  and  the  superstition 
which  protects  priests  from  homt  murder  will  not  aid 
them  in  conflict  with  the  foreigner.  Few  nations  mind 
killing  their  enemies’  priests,  and  many  priestly  civili- 
sations have  perished  without  record  before  they  well 
began.  But  such  a civilisation  will  not  perish  if  a warrior 
cast e is  tacked  on  to  it  and  is  bound  to  defend  it.  On  the 
contrary,  such  a civilisation  will  be  singularly  likely  to 


NATION-MAKING. 


149 


live.  The  head  of  the  sage  will  help  the  arm  of  the 
soldier. 

That  a nation  divided  into  castes  must  be  a most 
difficult  thing  to  found  is  plain.  Probably  it  could  only 
begin  in  a country  several  times  conquered,  and  where 
the  boundaries  of  each  caste  rudely  coincided  with  the 
boundaries  of  certain  sets  of  victors  and  vanquished. 
But,  as  we  now  see,  when  founded  it  is  a likely  nation 
to  last.  A party-coloured  community  of  many  tribes 
and  many  usages  is  more  likely  to  get  on,  and  help 
itself,  than  a nation  of  a single  lineage  and  one  mono- 
tonous rule.  I say  ‘ at  first,5  because  I apprehend  that 
in  this  case,  as  in  so  many  others  in  the  puzzling  history 
of  progress,  the  very  institutions  which  most  aid  at  step 
number  one  are  precisely  those  which  most  impede  at 
step  number  two.  The  whole  of  a caste  nation  is  more 
various  than  the  whole  of  a non-caste  nation,  but  each 
caste  itself  is  more  monotonous  than  anything  is,  or  can 
be,  in  a non-caste  nation.  Gradually  a habit  of  action  and 
type  of  mind  forces  itself  on  each  caste,  and  it  is  little 
likely  to  be  rid  of  it,  for  all  who  enter  it  are  taught  in 
one  way  and  trained  to  the  same  employment.  Several 
non-caste  nations  have  still  continued  to  progress.  But 
all  caste  nations  have  stopped  early,  though  some  have 
lasted  long.  Each  colour  in’  the  singular  composite 
of  these  tesselated  societies  has  an  indelible  and  invari- 
able shade. 

Thirdly,  we  see  why  so  few  nations  have  made  rapid 


150 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


advance,  and  how  many  have  become  stationary.  It  is 
in  the  process  of  becoming  a nation,  and  in  order  to 
become  such,  that  they  subjected  themselves  to  the  in- 
fluence which  has  made  them  stationary.  The}7  could 
not  become  a real  nation  without  binding  themselves  by 
a fixed  law  and  usage,  and  it  is  the  fixity  of  that  law 
and  usage  which  has  kept  them  as  they  were  ever 
since.  I wrote  a whole  essay  on  this  before,  so  I need 
say  nothing  now ; and  I only  name  it  because  it  is  one 
of  the  most  important  consequences  of  this  view  of 
society,  if  not  indeed  the  most  important. 

Again,  we  can  thus  explain  one  of  the  most  curious 
facts  of  the  present  world.  6 Manner/  says  a shrewd 
observer,  who  has  seen  much  of  existing  life,  ‘ manner 
gets  regularly  worse  as  you  go  from  the  East  to  the 
West;  it  is  best  in  Asia,  not  so  good  in  Europe,  and 
altogether  bad  in  the  western  states  of  America.5  And 
the  reason  is  this — an  imposing  manner  is  a dignified 
usage,  which  tends  to  preserve  itself  and  also  all  other 
existing  usages  along  with  itself.  It  tends  to  induce 
the  obedience  of  mankind.  One  of  the  cleverest  novelists 
of  the  present  day  has  a curious  dissertation  to  settle 
why  on  the  hunting-field,  and  in  all  collections  of  men, 
some  men  ‘ snub  and  some  men  get  snubbed  ; 5 and  why 
society  recognises  in  each  case  the  ascendancy  or  the 
subordination  as  if  it  was  right.  ‘ It  is  not  at  all/ 
Mr.  Trollope  fully  explains,  ‘rare  ability  which  gains 
the  supremacy ; very  often  the  ill-treated  man  is  quite 


NATION-MAKING. 


151 


as  clever  as  the  man  who  ill-treats  him.  Nor  does  it 
absolutely  depend  on  wealth  ; for,  though  great  wealth 
is  almost  always  a protection  from  social  ignominy,  and 
will  always  ensure  a passive  respect,  it  will  not  in  a 
miscellaneous  group  of  men  of  itself  gain  an  active 
power  to  snub  others.  Schoolboys,  in  the  same  way,’ 
the  novelist  adds,  6 let  some  boys  have  dominion,  and 
make  other  boys  slaves.’  And  he  decides,  no  doubt 
truly,  that  in  each  case  c something  in  the  manner  or 
gait  ’ of  the  supreme  boy  or  man  has  much  to  do  with 
it.  On  this  account  in  early  society  a dignified  manner 
is  of  essential  importance;  it  is,  then,  not  only  an 
auxiliary  mode  of  acquiring  respect,  but  a principal 
mode.  The  competing  institutions  which  have  now 
much  superseded  it,  had  not  then  begun.  Ancient  in- 
stitutions or  venerated  laws  did  not  then  exist ; and  the 
habitual  ascendancy  of  grave  manner  was  a primary 
force  in  winning  and  calming  mankind.  To  this  day  it 
is  rare  to  find  a savage  chief  without  it ; and  almost 
always  they  greatly  excel  in  it.  Only  last  year  a red 
Indian  chief  came  from  the  prairies  to  see  President 
Grant,  and  everybody  declared  that  he  had  the  best 
manners  in  Washington.  The  secretaries  and  heads  of 
departments  seemed  vulgar  to  him ; though,  of  course, 
intrinsically  they  were  infinitely  above  him,  for  he  was 
only  6 a plundering  rascal.’  But  an  impressive  manner 
nad  been  a tradition  in  the  spcieties  in  which  he  had 
lived,  because  it  was  of  great  value  in  those  societies  ; 

11 


152 


PHYSTCS  AND  POLITICS. 


and  it  is  not  a tradition  in  America,  for  nowhere  is  it 
less  thought  of,  or  ot  less  use,  than  in  a rough  English 
colony ; the  essentials  of  civilisation  there  depend  on 
far  different  influences. 

And  manner,  being  so  useful  and  so  important, 
usages  and  customs  grow  up  to  develop  it.  Asiatic 
society  is  full  of  sum  things,  if  it  should  not  rather  be 
said  to  be  composed  of  them. 

* From  the  spirit  a nd  decision  of  a public  envoy  upon 
ceremonies  and  forms/  says  Sir  John  Malcolm,  c the 
Persians  very  generally  form  their  opinion  of  the 
character  of  the  comitry  he  represents.  This  fact  I had 
read  in  books,  and  all  I saw  convinced  me  of  its  truth. 
Fortunately  the  Elchee  had  resided  at  some  of  the 
principal  courts  of  India,  whose  usages  are  very  similar. 
He  was,  therefore,  deeply  versed  in  that  important 
science  denominated  “ Kaida-e-nishest-oo-berkhast 55  (or 
the  art  of  sitting  and  rising),  in  which  is  included  a 
knowledge  of  the  forms  and  manners  of  good  society, 
and  particularly  those  of  Asiatic  kings  and  their  courts. 

6 He  was  quite  aware,  on  his  first  arrival  in  Persia,  of 
the  consequence  of  every  step  he  took  on  such  delicate 
points ; he  was,  therefore,  anxious  to  fight  all  his 
battles  regarding  ceremonies  before  he  came  near  the 
footstool  of  royalty.  We  were  consequently  plagued, 
from  the  moment  we  landed  at  Ambusheher,  till  we 
reached  Shiraz,  with  daily  almost  hourly  drilling,  that 
we  might  be  perfect  in  ovr  demeanour  at  all  places,  and 


NATION-MAKING. 


153 


under  all  circumstances.  We  were  carefully  instructed 
where  to  ride  in  a procession,  where  to  stand  or  sit 
within -doors,  when  to  rise  from  our  seats,  how  far  to 
advance  to  meet  a visitor,  and  to  what  part  of  the  tent 
or  house  we  were  to  follow  him  when  he  departed,  if  he 
was  of  sufficient  rank  to  make  us  stir  a step. 

6 The  regulations  of  our  risings  and  standings,  and 
movings  and  reseatings,  were,  however,  of  comparatively 
less  importance  than  the  time  and  manner  of  smoking 
our  Kellians  and  taking  our  coffee.  It  is  quite  as- 
tonishing how  much  depends  upon  coffee  and  tobacco 
in  Persia.  Men  are  gratified  or  offended,  according  to 
the  mode  in  which  these  favourite  refreshments  are 
offered.  You  welcome  a visitor,  or  send  him  off,  by  the 
way  in  which  you  call  for  a pipe  or  a cup  of  coffee. 
Then  you  mark,  in  the  most  minute  manner,  every  shade 
of  attention  and  consideration,  by  the  mode  in  which  he 
is  treated.  If  he  be  above  you,  you  present  these  re- 
freshments yourself,  and  do  not  partake  till  commanded; 
if  equal,  you  exchange  pipes,  and  present  him  with 
coffee,  taking  the  next  cup  yourself;  if  a little  below 
you,  and  you  wish  to  pay  him  attention,  you  leave  him 
to  smoke  his  own  pipe,  but  the  servant  gives  him, 
according  to  your  condescending  nod,  the  first  cup  of 
coffee  ; if  much  inferior,  you  keep  your  distance  and 
maintain  your  rank,  by  taking  the  first  cup  of  coffee 
yourself,  and  then  directing  the  servant,  by  a wave  of 
the  hand,  to  help  the  guest. 


154 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


‘ When  a visitor  arrives,  the  coffee  and  pipe  are  called 
for  to  welcome  him ; a second  call  for  these  articles 
announces  that  he  may  depart ; but  this  part  of  the 
ceremony  varies  according  to  the  relative  rank  or  inti- 
macy of  the  parties. 

4 These  matters  may  appear  light  to  those  with  whom 
observances  of  this  character  are  habits,  not  rules ; but 
in  this  country  they  are  of  primary  consideration,  a 
man’s  importance  with  himself  and  with  others  depend- 
ing on  them.5 

In  ancient  customary  societies  the  influence  of  man- 
ner, which  is  a primary  influence,  has  been  settled  into 
rules,  so  that  it  may  aid  established  usages  and  not 
thwart  them — that  it  may,  above  all,  augment  the  habit 
of  going  by  custom,  and  not  break  and  weaken  it. 
Every  aid,  as  we  have  seen,  was  wanted  to  impose  the 
yoke  of  custom  upon  such  societies  ; and  impressing  the 
power  of  manner  to  serve  them  was  one  of  the  greatest 
aids. 

And  lastly,  we  now  understand  why  order  and  civi- 
lisation are  so  unstable  even  in  progressive  communities. 
We  see  frequently  in  states  what  physiologists  call 
4 Atavism  5 — the  return,  in  part,  to  the  unstable  nature 
of  their  barbarous  ancestors.  Such  scenes  of  cruelty 
and  horror  as  happened  in  the  great  French  Revolu- 
tion, and  as  happen,  more  or  less,  in  every  great  riot, 
have  always  been  said  to  briug  out  a secret  and  sup- 
pressed side  of  human  nature  ; and  we  now  see  that 


NATION-MAKING. 


155 


they  were  the  outbreak  of  inherited  passions  long  re- 
pressed by  fixed  custom,  but  starting  into  life  as  soon 
as  that  repression  was  catastrophically  removed,  and 
when  sudden  choice  was  given.  The  irritability  of 
mankind,  too,  is  only  part  of  their  imperfect,  transitory 
civilisation  and  of  their  original  savage  nature.  They 
could  not  look  steadily  to  a given  end  for  an  hour  in 
their  pre-historic  state ; and  even  now,  when  excited  or 
when  suddenly  and  wholly  thrown  out  of  their  old 
grooves,  they  can  scarcely  do  so.  Even  some  very  high 
races,  as  the  French  and  the  Irish,  seem  in  troubled 
times  hardly  to  be  stable  at  all,  but  to  be  carried  every- 
where as  the  passions  of  the  moment  and  the  ideas 
generated  at  the  hour  may  determine.  But,  thoroughly 
to  deal  with  such  phenomena  as  these,  we  must  examine 
the  mode  in  which  national  characters  can  be  emanci- 
pated from  the  rule  of  custom,  and  can  be  prepared  for 
the  use  of  choice. 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


156 


No.  Y. 

THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 

The  greatest  living  contrast  is  between  the  old  Eastern 
and  customary  civilisations  and  the  new  Western  and 
changeable  civilisations.  A year  or  two  ago  an  inquiry 
was  made  of  our  most  intelligent  officers  in  the  East, 
not  as  to  whether  the  English  Government  were  really 
doing  good  in  the  East,  but  as  to  whether  the  natives 
of  India  themselves  thought  we  were  doing  good ; to 
which,  in  a majority  of  cases,  the  officers  who  were  the 
best  authority,  answered  thus : No  doubt  you  are 

giving  the  Indians  many  great  benefits  : you  give  them 
continued  peace,  free  trade,  the  right  to  live  as  they  like, 
subject  to  the  laws  ; in  these  points  and  others  they  are 
far  better  off  than  they  ever  were  ; but  still  they  cannot 
make  you  out.  What  puzzles  them  is  your  constant 
disposition  to  change,  or  as  you  call  it,  improvement. 
Their  own  life  in  every  detail  being  regulated  by  ancient 
usage,  they  cannot  comprehend  a policy  which  is  always 
bringing  something  new  ; they  do  not  a bit  believe  that 
the  desire  to  make  them  comfortable  and  happy  is  the 
root  of  it ; they  believe,  on  the  contrary,  that  you  are 
aiming  at  something  which  they  do  not  understand — 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


- 157 


that  you  mean  to  “take  away  their  religion;”  in  a 
word,  that  the  end  and  object  of  all  these  continual 
changes  is  to  make  Indians  not  what  they  are  and 
what  they  like  to  be,  but  something  new  and  different 
from  what  they  are,  and  what  they  would  not  like  to 
be.’  In  the  East,  in  a word,  we  are  attempting  to  put 
new  wine  into  old  bottles — to  pour  what  we  can  of  a 
civilisation  whose  spirit  is  progress  into  the  form  of  a 
civilisation  whose  spirit  is  fixity,  and  whether  we  shall 
succeed  or  not  is  perhaps  the  most  interesting  question 
in  an  age  abounding  almost  beyond  example  in  questions 
of  political  interest. 

Historical  inquiries  show  that  the  feeling  of  the 
Hindoos  is  the  old  feeling,  and  that  the  feeling  of  the 
Englishman  is  a modern  feeling.  ‘ Old  law  rests,5  as 
Sir  Henry  Maine  puts  it,  ‘ not  on  contract  but  on 
status.5  The  life  of  ancient  civilisation,  so  far  as  legal 
records  go,  runs  back  to  a time  when  every  important 
particular  of  life  was  settled  by  a usage  which  was 
social,  political,  and  religious,  as  we  should  now  say, 
all  in  one — which  those  who  obeyed  it  could  not  have 
been  able  to  analyse,  for  those  distinctions  had  noplace 
in  their  mind  and  language,  but  which  they  felt  to  be  a 
usage  of  imperishable  import,  and  above  all  things  to 
be  kept  unchanged.  In  former  papers  I have  shown, 
or  at  least  tried  to  show,  why  these  customary  civilisa- 
tions were  the  only  ones  which  suited  an  early  society ; 
why,  so  to  say,  they  alone  could  have  been  first ; in  what 


J58 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


manner  they  had  in  their  very  structure  a decisive  ad- 
vantage over  all  competitors.  But  now  comes  the 
further  question  : If  fixity  is  an  invariable  ingredient 
in  early  civilisations,  how  then  did  any  civilisation 
become  unfixed  ? No  doubt  most  civilisations  stuck 
where  they  first  were ; no  doubt  we  see  now  why  stag- 
nation is  the  rule  of  the  world,  and  v^hy^  progress  is  the 
very  rare  exception  ; Ju^t  we  do  not  learn  what  it  is 
whidTh; 


aused  j>rogress  m^h^e^few^cu^es,  or 


absence  of  what  it  is  which  has  denied  it  in  all  others. 

To  this  question  history  gives  a very  clear  and  very 
f remarkable  answer.  It  is  that  the  change  from  the  age 
of  status  to  the  age  of  choice  was  first  made  in  states 
where  the  government  was  to  a great  and  a growing 
extent  a government  by  discussion,  and  where  the  sub- 
jects of  that  discussion  were  in  some  degree  abstract,  or, 
'as  we  should  say,  matters  of  principle.  It  was  in  the 
small  republics  of  Greece  and  Italy  that  the  chain  of 
custom  was  first  broken.  Liberty  said,  Let  there  be 
light,  and,  like  a sunrise  on  the  sea,  Athens  arose,’  says 
Shelley,  and  his  historical  philosophy  is  in  this  case  far 
more  correct  than  is  usual  with  him.  A free  state — a 
state  with  liberty — means  a state,  call  it  republic  or  call 
it  monarchy,  in  which  the  sovereign  power  is  divided 
between  many  persons,  and  in  which  there  is  a discus- 
sion among  those  persons.  Of  these  the  Greek  republics 
were  the  first  in  history,  if  not  in  time,  and  Athens  wa3 
the  greatest  of  those  republics. 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


no 


After  the  event  it  is  easy  to  see  why  the  teaching  of 
history  should  be  this  and  nothing  else.  It  is  easy  to 
see  why  the  common  discussion  of  common  actions  or 
common  interests  should  become  the  root  of  change  and 
progress.  In  early  society,  originality  in  life  was  for- 
bidden and  repressed  by  the  fixed  rule  of  life.  It  may 
not  have  been  quite  so  much  so  in  Ancient  Greece  as  in 
some  other  parts  of  the  world.  But  it  was  very  much 
so  even  there.  As  a recent  writer  has  well  said,  c Law 
then  presented  itself  to  men’s  minds  as  something 
venerable  and  unchangeable,  as  old  as  the  city ; it  had 
been  delivered  by  the  founder  himself,  when  he  laid  the 
walls  of  the  city,  and  kindled  its  sacred  fire.’  An 
ordinary  man  who  wished  to  strike  out  a new  path,  to 
begin  a new  and  important  practice  by  himself,  would 
have  been  peremptorily  required  to  abandon  his  novelties 
on  pain  of  death ; he  was  deviating,  he  would  be  told, 
from  the  ordinances  imposed  by  the  gods  on  his  nation, 
and  he  must  not  do  so  to  please  himself.  On  the  con- 
trary, others  were  deeply  interested  in  his  actions.  If 
he  disobeyed,  the  gods  might  inflict  grievous  harm  on 
all  the  people  as  well  as  him.  Each  partner  in  the 
most  ancient  kind  of  partnerships  was  supposed  to  have 
the  power  of  attracting  the  wrath  of  the  divinities  on 
the  entire  firm,  upon  the  other  partners  quite  as  much 
as  upon  himself.  The  quaking  bystanders  in  a super- 
stitious age  would  soon  have  slain  an  isolated  bold  man 
in  the  beginning  of  his  innovations.  What  Macaulay 


160  PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 

so  relied  on  as  the  incessant  source  of  progress— -the 
desire  of  man  to  better  his  condition — was  not  then 
permitted  to  work ; man  was  required  tc  live  as  his  an- 
cestors had  lived. 

Still  further  away  from  those  times  were  the  6 free 
thought ’ and  the  c advancing  sciences  5 of  which  we  now 
hear  so  much.  The  first  and  most  natural  subject  upon 
which  human  thought  concerns  itself  is  religion;  the 
first  wish  of  the  half-emancipated  thinker  is  to  use  his 
reason  on  the  great  problems  of  human  destiny — to 
find  out  whence  he  came  and  whither  he  goes,  to  form 
for  himself  the  most  reasonable  idea  of  God  which  he 
can  form.  But,  as  Mr.  Grote  happily  said — 4 This  is 
usually  what  ancient  times  would  not  let  a man  do. 
His  gens  or  his  c pparpia  required  him  to  believe  as  they 
believed.’  Toleration  is  of  all  ideas  the  most  modern, 
because  the  notion  that  the  bad  religion  of  A cannot 
impair,  here  or  hereafter,  the  welfare  of  B,  is,  strange 
to  say,  a modern  idea.  And  the  help  of  6 science,’  at 
that  stage  of  thought,  is  still  more  Nugatory.  Physical 
science,  as  we  conceive  it — that  is,  the  systematic  in- 
vestigation of  external  nature  in  detail — did  not  then 
exist.  A few  isolated  observations  on  surface  things — 
a half-correct  calendar,  secrets  mainly  of  priestly  in- 
vention, and  in  priestly  custody — were  all  that  was 
then  imagined  ; the  idea  of  using  a settled  study  of 
nature  as  a basis  for  the  discovery  of  new  instruments 
and  new  things,  did  not  then  exist.  It  is  indeed  a 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


161 


modern  idea,  and  is  peculiar  to  a few  European  countries 
even  yet.  In  the  most  intellectual  city  of  the  ancient 
world,  in  its  most  intellectual  age,  Socrates,  its  most 
intellectual  inhabitant,  discouraged  the  study  of  physics 
because  they  engendered  uncertainty,  and  did  not  aug- 
ment human  happiness.  The  kind  of  knowledge  which 
is  most  connected  with  human  progress  now  was  that 
least  connected  with  it  then. 

Bat  a government  by  discussion,  if  it  can  be  borne, 
at  once  breaks  down  the  yoke  of  fixed  custom.  The 
idea  of  the  two  is  inconsistent.  As  far  a.s  it  goes,  the 
mere  putting  up  of  a subject  to  discussion,  with  the 
object  of  being  guided  by  that  discussion,  is  a clear  ad- 
mission that  that  subject  is  in  no  degree  settled  by 
established  rule,  and  that  men  are  free  to  choose  in  it. 
It  is  an  admission  too  that  there  is  no  sacred  authority 
— no  one  transcendent  and  divinely  appointed  man 
4 whom  in  that  matter  the  community  is  bound  to  obey. 
And  if  a single  subject  or  group  of  subjects  be  once 
admitted  to  discussion,  ere  long  the  habit  of  discussion 
comes  to  be  established,  the  sacred  charm  of  use  and 
wont  to  be  dissolved.  4 Democracy/  it  has  been  said  in 
modern  times,  is  like  the  grave  ; it  takes,  but  it  does 
not  give.5  The  same  is  true  of  c discussion.5  Once  effec- 
tually submit  a subject  to  that  ordeal,  and  you  can  never 
withdraw  it  again  ; you  can  never  again  clothe  it  with 
mystery,  or  fence  it  by  consecration  ; it  remains  for  ever 
open  to  free  choice,  and  exposed  to  profane  deliberation. 


162 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


Tlie  only  subjects  which  can  be  first  submitted,  or 
which  till  a very  late  age  of  civilisation  can  be  submitted 
to  discussion  in  the  community,  are  the  questions  in- 
volving the  visible  and  pressing  interests  of  the  com- 
munity ; they  are  political  questions  of  high  and  urgent 
import.  If  a nation  has  in  any  considerable  degree 
gained  the  habit,  and  exhibited  the  capacity,  to  discuss 
these  questions  with  freedom,  and  to  decide  them  with 
discretion,  to  argue  much  on  politics  and  not  to  argue 
ruinously,  an  enormous  advance  in  other  kinds  of  civi- 
lisation may  confidently  be  predicted  for  it.  And  the 
reason  is  a plain  deduction  from  the  principles  which 
we  have  found  to  guide  early  civilisation.  The  first 
pre-historic  men  were  passionate  savages,  with  the 
greatest  difficulty  coerced  into  order  and  compressed 
into  a state.  For  ages  were  spent  in  beginning  that 
order  and  founding  that  state  ; the  only  sufficient  and 
effectual  agent  in  so  doing  was  consecrated  custom ; but 
then  that  custom  gathered  over  everything,  arrested  all 
onward  progress,  and  stayed  the  originality  of  mankind. 
If,  therefore,  a nation  is  able  to  gain  the  benefit  of 
custom  without  the  evil — if  after  ages  of  waiting  it  can 
have  order  and  choice  together — at  once  the  fatal  clog 
is  removed,  and  the  ordinary  springs  of  progress,  as  in 
& modern  community  we  conceive  them,  begin  their 
elastic  action. 

Discussion,  too,  has  incentives  to  progress  peculiar  to 
Itself.  It  gives  a premium  to  intelligence.  To  set  out 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


163 


the  arguments  required  to  determine  political  action 
with  such  force  and  effect  that  they  really  should  deter- 
mine it,  is  a high  and  great  exertion  of  intellect.  Of 
course,  all  such  arguments  are  produced  under  con- 
ditions ; the  argument  abstractedly  best  is  not  neces- 
sarily the  winning  argument.  Political  discussion 
must  move  those  who  have  to  act ; it  must  be  framed 
in  the  ideas,  and  be  consonant  with  the  precedent,  of 
its  time,  just  as  it  must  speak  its  language.  But  within 
these  marked  conditions  good  discussion  is  better  than 
bad  ; no  people  can  bear  a government  of  discussion  for 
a day,  which  does  not,  within  the  boundaries  of  its  pre- 
judices and  its  ideas,  prefer  good  reasoning  to  bad 
reasoning,  sound  argument  to  unsound.  A prize  for 
argumentative  mind  is  given  in  free  states,  to  which  no 
other  states  have  anything  to  compare. 

Tolerance  too  is  learned  in  discussion,  and,  as  history 
shows,  is  only  so  learned.  In  all  customary  societies 
bigotry  is  the  ruling  principle.  Tn  rurl r pi n ittt  to  this 
day  any  one  who  says  anything  new  is  looked  on  with 
suspicion,  and  is  persecuted  by  opinion  if  not  injured 
by  penalty.  One  of  the  greatest  pains  to  human  nature 
is  the  pain  of  a new  idea.  It  is,  as  common  people 
say,  so  ‘ upsetting; 5 it  makes  you  think  that,  after  all, 
your  favourite  notions  may  be  wrong,  your  firmest 
beliefs  ill-founded ; it  is  certain  that  till  now  there  was 
no  place  allotted  in  your  mind  to  the  new  and  startling 
inhabitant,  and  now  that  it  has  conquered  an  entrance, 


164 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS, 


you  do  not  at  once  see  which  of  your  old  ideas  i t will  or 
will  not  turn  out,  with  which  of  them  it  can  be  recon- 
ciled, and  with  which  it  is  at  essential  enmity. 
Naturally,  therefore,  common  men  hate  a new  idea, 
and  are  disposed  more  or  less  to  ill-treat  the  original 
man  who  brings  it.  Even  nations  with  long  habits  of 
discussion  are  intolerant  enough.  In  England,  where 
there  is  on  the  whole  probably  a freer  discussion  of  a 
greater  number  of  subjects  than  ever  was  before  in  the 
world,  we  know  how  much  power  bigotry  retains.  But 
discussion,  to  be  successful,  requires  tolerance.  It  fails 
wherever,  as  in  a French  political  assembly,  any  one 
who  hears  anything  which  he  dislikes  tries  to  howl  it 
down.  If  we  know  that  a nation  is  capable  of  enduring 
continuous  discussion,  we  know  that  it  is  capable  of 
practising  with  equanimity  continuous  tolerance. 

The  power  of  a government  by  discussion  as  an  in- 
strument of  elevation  plainly  depends — other  things 
being  equal — on  the  greatness  or  littleness  of  the  things 
to  be  discussed.  There  are  periods  wThen  great  ideas 
are  6 in  the  air,’  and  when,  from  some  cause  or  other, 
even  common  persons  seem  to  partake  of  an  unusual 
elevation.  The  age  of  Elizabeth  in  England  was  con- 
spicuously such  a time.  The  new  idea  of  the  Refor- 
mation nr  religion,  and  the  enlargement  of  the  moenia 
mundi  by  the  discovery  of  new  and  singular  lands,  taken 
together,  gave  an  impulse  to  thought  which  few,  if  any, 
ages  can  equal.  The  discussion,  though  not  wholly 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


16*5 


free,  was  yet  far  freer  than  in  the  average  of  ages  and 
countries.  Accordingly,  every  pursuit  seemed  to  start 
forwards  Poetry,  science,  and  architecture,  different  as 
they  are,  and  removed  as  they  all  are  at  first  sight  from 
such  an  influence  as  discussion,  were  suddenly  started 
onward.  Macaulay  would  have  said  you  might  rightly 
read  the  power  of  discussion  ‘ in  the  poetry  of  Shake- 
speare, in  the  prose  of  Bacon,  in  the  oriels  of  Longleat, 
and  the  stately  pinnacles  of  Burleigh.5  This  is,  in 
truth,  but  another  case  of  the  principle  of  which  I have 
had  occasion  to  say  so  much  as  to  the  character  of  ages 
and  countries.  If  any  particular  power  is  much  prized 
in  an  age,  those  possessed  of  that  power  will  be 
imitated ; those  deficient  in  that  power  will  be  de- 
spised. In  consequence  an  unusual  quantity  of  that 
power  will  be  developed,  and  be  conspicuous.  Within 
certain  limits  vigorous  and  elevated  thought  was  re- 
spected in  Elizabeth’s  time,  and,  therefore,  vigorous 
and  elevated  thinkers  were  many ; and  the  effect  went 
far  beyond  the  cause.  It  penetrated  into  physical 
science,  for  which  very  few  men  cared  ; and  it  began  a 
reform  in  philosophy  to  which  almost  all  were  then 
opposed.  In  a word,  the  temper  of  the  age  encouraged 
originality,  and  in  consequence  original  men  started 
into  prominence,  went  hither  and  thither  where  they 
liked,  arrived  at  goals  which  the  age  never  expected, 
and  so  made  it  ever  memorable. 

In  this  manner  all  the  great'  movements  of  thought 


166 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


in  ancient  and  modern  times  have  been  nearly  con- 
nected in  time  with  government  by  discussion.  Athens, 
Rome,  the  Italian  republics  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
communes  and  states-general  of  feudal  Europe,  have  all 
had  a special  and  peculiar  quickening  influence,  which 
they  owed  to  their  freedom,  and  which  states  without 
that  freedom  have  never  communicated.  And  it  has 
been  at  the  time  of  great  epochs  of  thought — at  the 
Peloponnesian  war,  at  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Republic, 
at  the  Reformation,  at  the  French  Revolution — that 
such  liberty  of  speaking  and  thinking  have  produced 
their  full  effect. 

It  is  on  this  account  that  the  discussions  of  savage 
tribes  have  produced  so  little  effect  in  emancipating 
those  tribes  from  their  despotic  customs.  The  oratory 
of  the  North  American  Indian — the  first  savage  whose 
peculiarities  fixed  themselves  in  the  public  imagination 
— has  become  celebrated,  and  yet  the  North  American 
Indians  were  scarcely,  if  at  all,  better  orators  than  many 
other  savages.  Almost  all  of  the  savages  who  have 
melted  away  before  the  Englishman  were  better  speakers 
than  he  is.  But  the  oratory  of  the  savages  has  led  to 
nothing,  and  was  likely  to  lead  to  nothing.  It  is  a 
discussion  not  of  principles,  but  of  undertakings  ; its 
topics  are  whether  expedition  A will  answer,  and  should 
be  undertaken;  whether  expedition  B will  not  answer, 
and  should  not  be  undertaken ; whether  village  A is 
the  best  village  to  plunder,  or  whether  village  B is  a 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


1G7 


better.  Such  discussions  augment  the  vigour  of  lan- 
guage, encourage  a debating  facility,  and  develop  those 
gifts  of  demeanour  and  of  gesture  which  excite  the 
confidence  of  the  hearers.  But  they  do  not  excite  the 
speculative  intellect,  do  not  lead  men  to  argue  specu- 
lative doctrines,  or  to  question  ancient  principles.  They, 
in  some  material  respects,  improve  the  sheep  within  the 
fold ; but  they  do  not  help  them  or  incline  them  to  leap 
out  of  the  fold. 

The  next  question,  therefore,  is,  Why  did  discussions 
in  some  cases  relate  to  prolific  ideas,  and  why  did  dis- 
cussions in  other  cases  relate  only  to  isolated  transac- 
tions ? The  reply  which  history  suggests  is  very  clear 
and  very  remarkable.  Some  races  of  men  at  our  earliest 
knowledge  of  them  have  already  acquired  the  basis  of  a 
free  constitution ; they  have  already  the  rudiments  of  a 
complex  polity — a monarch,  a senate,  and  a general 
meeting  of  citizens.  The  Greeks  were  one  of  those 
races,  and  it  happened,  as  was  natural,  that  there  was 
in  process  of  time  a struggle,  the  earliest  that  we  know 
of,  between  the  aristocratical  party,  originally  repre- 
sented by  the  senate,  and  the  popular  party,  represented 
by  the  6 general  meeting.’  This  is  plainly  a question 
of  principle,  and  its  being  so  has  led  to  its  history 
being  written  more  than  two  thousand  years  afterwards 
in  a very  remarkable  manner.  Some  seventy  years  ago 
an  English  country  gentleman  named  Mitford,  who, 
like  so  many  of  his  age,  had  b£en  terrified  into  aristo- 


168 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


cratic  opinions  by  the  first  French  Revolution,  suddenly 
found  that  the  history  of  the  Peloponnesian  War  was 
the  reflex  of  his  own  time.  He  took  up  his  Thucy- 
dides, and  there  he  saw,  as  in  a mirror,  the  progress 
and  the  struggles  of  his  age.  It  required  some  fresh- 
ness of  mind  to  see  this  ; at  least,  it  had  been  hidden 
for  many  centuries.  All  the  modern  histories  of  Greece 
before  Mitford  had  but  the  vaguest  idea  of  it;  and  not 
being  a man  of  supreme  originality,  he  would  doubtless 
have  had  very  little  idea  of  it  either,  except  that  the 
analogy  of  what  he  saw  helped  him  by  a telling  object- 
lesson  to  the  understanding  of  what  he  read.  Just  as 
in  every  country  of  Europe  in  1793  there  were  two 
factions,  one  of  the  old-world  aristocracy,  and  the  other 
of  the  incoming  democracy,  just  so  there  was  in  every 
city  of  ancient  Greece,  in  the  year  400  b.c.,  one  party 
of  the  many  and  another  of  the  few.  This  Mr.  Mitford 
perceived,  and  being  a strong  aristocrat,  he  wrote  a 
‘ history,5  which  is  little  except  a party  pamphlet,  and 
which,  it  must  be  said,  is  even  now  readable  on  that 
very  account.  The  vigour  of  passion  with  which  it  was 
written  puts  life  into  the  wrords,  and  retains  the  atten- 
tion of  the  reader.  And  that  is  not  all.  Mr.  Grote, 
the  great  scholar  whom  we  have  had  lately  to  mourn, 
also  recognising  the  identity  between  the  struggles  of 
Athens  and  Sparta  and  the  struggles  of  our  modern 
world,  and  taking  violently  the  contrary  side  to  that  of 
Mitford,  being  as  great  a democrat  as  Mitford  was  an 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


160 


aristocrat,  wrote  a reply,  far  above  Mitford’s  liistory  in 
power  and  learning,  but  being  in  its  main  characteristic 
almost  identical,  being  above  all  things  a book  of 
vigorous  political  passion,  written  for  persons  who  care 
for  politics,  and  not,  as  almost  all  histories  of  antiquity 
are  and  must  be,  the  book  of  a man  who  cares  for 
scholarship  more  than  for  anything  else,  written  mainly 
if  not  exclusively,  for  scholars.  And  the  effect  of 
fundamental  political  discussion  was  the  same  in  ancient 
as  in  modern  times.  The  whole  customary  ways  of 
thought  were  at  once  shaken  by  it,  and  shaken  not 
only  in  the  closets  of  philosophers,  but  in  the  common 
thought  and  daily  business  of  ordinary  men.  The 
4 liberation  of  humanity-,5  as  Goethe  used  to  call  it — the 
deliverance  of  men  from  the  yoke  of  inherited  usage, 
and  of  rigid,  unquestionable  law — was  begun  in  Greece, 
and  had  many  of  its  greatest  effects,  good  and  evil,  on 
Greece.  It  is  just  because  of  the  analogy  between  the 
controversies  of  that  time  and  those  of  our  times  that 
some  one  has  said,  4 Classical  history  is  a part  of 
modern  history;  it  is  mediaeval  history  only  which  is 
ancient.5 

If  there  had  been  no  discussion  of  principle  in  Greece, 
probably  she  would  still  have  produced  works  of  art. 
Homer  contains  no  such  discussion.  The  speeches  in 
the  4 Iliad,5  which  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  most  competent  of 
living  judges,  maintains  to  be  the  finest  ever  composed 
by  man,  are  not  discussions  of  principle.  There  is  no 


170 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


more  tendency  in  them  to  critical  disquisition  than 
there  is  to  political  economy.  In  Herodotus  you  have 
the  beginning  of  the  age  of  discussion.  He  belongs  in 
his  essence  to  the  age  which  is  going  out.  He  refers 
with  reverence  to  established  ordinance  and  fixed 
religion.  Still,  in  his  travels  through  Greece,  he  must 
have  heard  endless  political  arguments  ; and  accord- 
ingly  you  can  find  in  his  book  many  incipient  traces  of 
abstract  political  disquisition.  The  discourses  on  de- 
mocracy, aristocracy,  and  monarchy,  which  he  puts 
into  the  mouth  of  the  Persian  conspirators  when  the 
monarchy  was  vacant,  have  justly  been  called  absurd, 
as.  speeches  supposed  to  have  been  spoken  by  those 
persons.  No  Asiatic  ever  thought  of  such  things.  You 
might  as  well  imagine  Saul  or  David  speaking  them  as 
those  to  whom  Herodotus  attributes  them.  They  are 
Greek  speeches,  full  of  free  Greek  discussion,  and  sug- 
gested by  the  experience,  already  considerable,  of  the 
Greeks  in  the  results  of  discussion.  The  age  of  debate 
is  beginning,  and  even  Herodotus,  the  least  of  a 
wrangler  of  any  man,  and  the  most  of  a sweet  and 
simple  narrator,  felt  the  effect.  When  we  come  to 
Thucydides,  the  results  of  discussion  are  as  full  as  they 
have  ever  been  ; his  light  is  pure,  ‘ dry  light,’  free  from 
the  4 humours  ’ of  habit,  and  purged  from  consecrated 
usage.  As  Grote’s  history  often  reads  like  a report  to 
Parliament,  so  half  Thucydides  reads  like  a speech,  or 
materials  for  a speech,  in  the  Athenian  Assembly.  Of 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


171 


later  times  it  is  unnecessary  to  speak.  Every  page  of 
Aristotle  and  Plato  bears  ample  and  indelible  trace  of 
the  age  of  discussion  in  which  they  lived ; and  thought 
cannot  possibly  be  freer.  The  deliverance  of  the  specu  - 
lative intellect  from  traditional  and  customary  authority 
was  altogether  complete. 

No  doubt  the  ‘ detachment5  from  prejudice,  and  the 
subjection  to  reason,  which  I ascribe  to  ancient  Athens, 
only  went  down  a very  little  way  among  the  population 
of  it.  Two  great  classes  of  the  people,  the  slaves  and 
women,  were  almost  excluded  from  such  qualities;  even 
the  free  population  doubtless  contained  a far  greater 
proportion  of  very  ignorant  and  very  superstitious 
persons  than  we  are  in  the  habit  of  imagining.  We  fix 
our  attention  on  the  best  specimens  of  Athenian  culture 
— on  the  books  which  have  descended  to  us,  and  we 
forget  that  the  corporate  action  of  the  Athenian  people 
at  various  critical  junctures  exhibited  the  most  gross 
superstition.  Still,  as  far  as  the  intellectual  and  culti- 
vated part  of  society  is  concerned,  the  triumph  of  reason 
was  complete ; the  minds  of  the  highest  philosophers 
were  then  as  ready  to  obey  evidence  and  reason  as  they 
have  ever  been  since ; probably  they  were  more  ready. 
The  rule  of  custom  over  them  at  least  had  been  wholly 
broken,  and  the  primary  conditions  of  intellectual  pro- 
gress were  in  that  respect  satisfied. 

It  may  be  said  that  I am  giving  too  much  weight  to 
the  classical  idea  of  human  development ; that  history 


172 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


contains  the  record  of  another  progress  as  well ; that  in 
a certain  sense  there  was  progress  in  Judsea  as  well  as 
in  Athens.  And  unquestionably  there  was  progress, 
but  it  was  omy  progress  upon  a single  subject.  If  we 
except  religion  and  omit  also  all  that  the  Jews  had 
learned  from  foreigners,  it  may  be  doubted  if  there  be 
much  else  new  between  the  time  of  Samuel  and  that 
of  Malaclii.  In  religion  there  was  progress,  but  without 
it  there  was  not  any.  This  was  due  to  the  cause  of 
that  progress.  All  over  antiquity,  all  over  the  East, 
and  over  other  parts  of  the  world  which  preserve  more 
or  less  nearly  their  ancient  condition,  there  are  two 
classes  of  religious  teachers — one,  the  priests,  the 
inheritors  of  past  accredited  inspiration  ; the  other,  the 
prophet,  the  possessor  of  a like  present  inspiration. 
Curtius  describes  the  distinction  well  in  relation  to  the 
condition  of  Greece  with  which  history  first  presents 
us  : — 

6 The  mantic  art  is  an  institution  totally  different 
from  the  priesthood.  It  is  based  on  the  belief  that  the 
gods  are  in  constant  proximity  to  men,  and  in  their 
government  of  the  world,  which  comprehends  every 
thing  both  great  and  small,  will  not  disdain  to  manifest 
their  will ; nay,  it  seems  necessary  that,  whenever  any 
hitch  has  arisen  in  the  moral  system  of  the  human 
world,  this  should  also  manifest  itself  by  some  sign  in 
the  world  of  nature,  if  only  mortals  are  able  to  under- 
stand and  avail  themselves  of  these  divine  hints- 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


173 


4 For  this  a special  capacity  is  requisite;  not  a 
capacity  which  can  be  learnt  like  a human  art  or  science, 
but  rather  a peculiar  state  of  grace  in  the  case  of 
single  individuals  and  single  families  whose  ears  and 
eyes  are  opened  to  the  divine  revelations,  and  who 
participate  more  largely  than  the  rest  of  mankind  in 
the  divine  spirit.  Accordingly  it  is  their  office  and 
calling  to  assert  themselves  as  organs  of  the  divine  will; 
they  are,  justified  in  opposing  their  authority  to  every 
power  of  the  world.  On  this  head  conflicts  were  un- 
avoidable, and  the  reminiscences  living  in  the  Greek 
people,  of  the  agency  of  a Tiresias  and  Calchas,  prove 
how  the  Heroic  kings  experienced  not  only  support  and 
aid,  but  also  opposition  and  violent  protests,  from  the 
mouths  of  the  men  of  prophecy.5 

In  Judaea  there  was  exactly  the  same  opposition  as 
elsewhere.  All  that  is  new  comes  from  the  prophets ; 
all  which  is  old  is  retained  by  the  priests.  But  the 
peculiarity  of  Judaea — a peculiarity  which  I do  not  for 
a moment  pretend  that  I can  explain — is  that  the 
prophetic  revelations  are,  taken  as  a whole,  indis- 
putably improvements ; that  they  contain,  as  time 
goes  on,  at  each  succeeding  epoch,  higher  and  better 
views  of  religion.  But  the  peculiarity  is  not  to  my 
present  purpose.  My  point  is  that  there  is  no 
such  spreading  impetus  in  progress  thus  caused  as 
there  is  in  progress  caused  by  discussion.  To  receive 
a particular  conclusion  upon  the  ipse  dixit , upon  the 


174 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


accepted  authority  of  an  admired  instructor,  is  obviously 
not  so  vivifying  to  the  argumentative  and  questioning 
intellect  as  to  argue  out  conclusions  for  yourself.  Ac- 
cordingly the  religious  progress  caused  by  the  prophets 
did  not  break  down  that  ancient  code  of  authoritative 
usage.  On  the  contrary,  the  two  combined.  In  each 
generation  the  conservative  influence  ‘ built  the  se- 
pulchres 5 and  accepted  the  teaching  of  past  prophets, 
even  while  it  was  slaying  and  persecuting  those  who 
were  living.  But  discussion  and  custom  cannot  be 
thus  combined ; their  ‘ method,5  as  modern  philosophers 
would  say,  is  antagonistic.  Accordingly,  the  progress 
of  the  classical  states  gradually  awakened  the  whole 
intellect;  that  of  Judaea  was  partial  and  improved 
religion  only.  And,  therefore,  in  a history  of  intel- 
lectual progress,  the  classical  fills  the  superior  and  the 
Jewish  the  inferior  place  ; just  as  in  a special  history  of 
theology  only,  the  places  of  the  two  might  be  inter- 
changed. 

A second  experiment  has  been  tried  on  the  same 
subject-matter.  The  characteristic  of  the  Middle  Ages 
may  be  approximately — though  only  approximately — 
described  as  a return  to  the  period  of  authoritative 
usage  and  as  an  abandonment  of  the  classical  habit  of 
independent  and  self-choosing  thought.  I do  not  for 
an  instant  mean  that  this  is  an  exact  description  of  the 
main  mediaeval  characteristic ; nor  can  I discuss  how 
far  that  characteristic  was  an  advance  upon  those  of 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


175 


previous  times  ; its  friends  say  it  is  far  better  than  the 
peculiarities  of  the  classical  period;  its  enemies  that  it 
is  far  worse.  But  both  friends  and  enemies  will  admit 
that  the  most  marked  feature  of  the  Middle  Ages  may 
roughly  be  described  as  I have  described  it.  And  my 
point  is  that  just  as  this  mediaeval  characteristic  was 
that  of  a return  to  the  essence  of  the  customary  epoch 
which  had  marked  the  pre- Athenian  times,  so  it  was 
dissolved  much  in  the  same  manner  as  the  influence  of 
Athens,  and  other  influences  like  it,  claim  to  have 
dissolved  that  customary  epoch. 

The  principal  agent  in  breaking  up  the  persistent 
mediaeval  customs,  which  were  so  fixed  that  they  seemed 
likely  to  last  for  ever,  or  till  some  historical  catastrophe 
overwhelmed  them,  was  the  popular  element  in  the 
ancient  polity  which  was  everywhere  diffused  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  Germanic  tribes  brought  with  them 
from  their  ancient  dwelling-place  a polity  containing, 
like  the  classical,  a king,  a council,  and  a popular 
assembly ; and  wherever  they  went,  they  carried  these 
elements  and  varied  them,  as  force  compelled  or  circum- 
stances required.  As  far  as  England  is  concerned,  the 
excellent  dissertations  of  Mr.  Freeman  and  Mr.  Stubbs 
have  proved  this  in  the  amplest  manner,  and  brought  it 
home  to  persons  who  cannot  claim  to  possess  much 
antiquarian  learning.  The  history  of  the  English  Con- 
stitution, as  far  as  the  world  cares  for  it,  is,  in  fact,  the 
complex  history  of  the  popular  element  in  this  ancient 


176 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


polity,  which  was  sometimes  weaker  and  sometimes 
stronger,  but  which  has  never  died  out,  has  commonly 
possessed  great  thongh  varying  power,  and  is  now  en- 
tirely predominant.  The  history  of  this  growth  is  the 
history  of  the  English  people ; and  the  discussions 
about  this  constitution  and  the  discussions  within  it, 
the  controversies  as  to  its  structure  and  the  contro- 
versies as  to  its  true  effects,  have  mainly  trained  the 
English  political  intellect,  in  so  far  as  it  is  trained.  But 
in  much  of  Europe,  and  in  England  particularly,  the 
influence  of  religion  has  been  very  different  from  what 
it  was  in  antiquiiy.  It  has  been  an  influence  of  dis- 
cussion. Since  Luther’s  time  there  has  been  a con- 
viction more  or  less  rooted,  that  a man  may  by  an 
intellectual  process  think  out  a religion  for  himself,  and 
that,  as  the  highest  of  all  duties,  he  ought  to  do  so. 
The  influence  of  the  political  discussion,  and  the 
influence  of  the  religious  discussion,  have  been  so  long 
and  so  firmly  combined,  and  have  so  effectually  enforced 
one  another,  that  the  old  notions  of  loyalty,  and  fealty, 
and  authority,  as  they  existed  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
have  now  over  the  best  minds  almost  no  effect. 

It  is  true  that  the  influence  of  discussion  is  not  the 
only  force  which  has  produced  this  vast  effect.  Both 
in  ancient  and  in  modern  times  other  forces  co-operated 
with  it.  Trade,  for  example,  is  obviously  a force  which 
has  done  much  to  bring  men  of  different  customs  and 
different  beliefs  into  close  contiguity,  and  has  thus 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


177 


aided  to  change  the  customs  and  the  beliefs  of  them  all. 
Colonisation  is  another  such  influence  : it  settles  men 
among  aborigines  of  alien  ra-ce  and  usages,  and  it  com- 
monly compels  the  colonists  not  to  be  over-strict  in  the 
choice  of  their  own  elements ; they  are  obliged  to 
coalesce  with  and  6 adopt ? useful  bands  and  useful  men, 
though  their  ancestral  customs  may  not  be  identical, 
nay,  though  they  may  be,  in  fact,  opposite  to  their 
own.  In  modern  Europe,  the  existence  of  a cosmopolite 
Church,  claiming  to  be  above  nations,  and  really  ex- 
tending through  nations,  and  the  scattered  remains  of 
Roman  law  and  Roman  civilisation  co-operated  with  the 
liberating  influence  of  political  discussion.  And  so  did 
other  causes  also.  But  perhaps  in  no  case  have  these 
subsidiary  causes  alone  been  able  to  generate  intel- 
lectual freedom ; certainly  in  all  the  most  remarkable 
cases  the  influence  of  discussion  has  presided  at  the 
creation  of  that  freedom,  and  has  been  active  and 
dominant  in  it. 

No  doubt  apparent  cases  of  exception  may  easily  be 
found.  It  may  be  said  that  in  the  court  of  Augustus 
there  was  much  general  intellectual  freedom,  an  almost 
entire  detachment  from  ancient  prejudice,  but  that 
there  was  no  free  political  discussion  at  all.  But,  then, 
the  ornaments  of  that  time  were  derived  from  a time  of 
great  freedom : it  was  the  republic  which  trained  the 
men  whom  the  empire  ruled.  The  close  congregation 
of  most  miscellaneous  elements  under  the  empire,  was, 


178 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


no  doubt,  of  itself  unfavourable  to  inherited  prejudice, 
and  favourable  to  intellectual  exertion.  Yet,  except 
in  the  instance  of  the  Church,  which  is  a peculiar  sub- 
ject that  requires  a separate  discussion,  how  little  was 
added  to  what  the  republic  left ! The  power  of  free 
interchange  of  ideas  being  wanting,  the  ideas  them- 
selves were  barren.  Also,  no  doubt,  much  intellectual 
freedom  may  emanate  from  countries  of  free  political 
discussion,  and  penetrate  to  countries  where  that  dis- 
cussion is  limited.  Thus  the  intellectual  freedom  of 
France  in  the  eighteenth  century  was  in  great  part 
owing  to  the  proximity  of  and  incessant  intercourse 
with  England  and  Holland.  Yoltaire  resided  among 
us  ; and  every  page  of  the  c Esprit  des  Lois  5 proves  how 
much  Montesquieu  learned  from  living  here.  But,  of 
course,  it  was  only  part  of  the  French  culture  which 
was  so  derived  : the  germ  might  be  foreign,  but  the 
tissue  was  native.  And  very  naturally,  for  it  would  be 
absurd  to  call  the  ancien  regime  a government  without 
discussion  : discussion  abounded  there,  only,  by  reason 
of  the  bad  form  of  the  government,  it  was  never  sure 
with  ease  and  certainty  to  affect  political  action.  The 
despotism  ‘ tempered  by  epigram,5  was  a government 
which  permitted  argument  of  licentious  freedom  within 
changing  limits,  and  which  was  ruled  by  that  argument 
spasmodically  and  practically,  though  not  in  name  or 
consistently. 

But  though  in  the  earliest  and  in  the  latest  time 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


179 


government  by  discussion  has  been  a principal  organ 
for  improving  mankind,  yet,  from  its  origin,  it  is  a 
plant  of  singular  delicacy.  At  first  the  chances  are 
much  against  its  living.  In  the  beginning,  the  mem- 
bers of  a free  state  are  of  necessity  few.  The  essence 
of  it  requires  that  discussion  shall  be  brought  home  to 
those  members.  But  in  early  time,  when  writing  is 
difficult,  reading  rare,  and  representation  undiscovered, 
those  who  are  to  be  guided  by  the  discussion  must  hear 
it  with  their  own  ears,  must  be  brought  face  to  face 
with  the  orator,  and  must  feel  his  influence  for  them- 
selves. The  first  free  states  were  little  towns,  smaller 
than  any  political  division  which  wTe  now  have,  except 
the  Republic  of  Andorre,  which  is  a sort  of  vestige  of 
them.  It  is  in  the  market-place  of  the  country  town, 
as  we  should  now  speak,  and  in  petty  matters  concern- 
ing the  market-town,  that  discussion  began,  and  thither 
all  the  long  train  of  its  consequences  may  be  traced 
back.  Some  historical  inquirers,  like  myself,  can 
hardly  look  at  such  a place  without  some  sentimental 
musing,  poor  and  trivial  as  the  thing  seems.  But  such 
small  towns  are  very  feeble.  Numbers  in  the  earliest 
wars,  as  in  the  latest,  are  a main  source  of  victory. 
And  in  early  times  one  kind  of  state  is  very  common 
and  is  exceedingly  numerous.  In  every  quarter  of  the 
globe  we  find  great  populations  compacted  by  tradi- 
tional custom  and  consecrated  sentiment,  which  are 
ruled  by  some  soldier — generally  some  soldier  of  a 


i80 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


foreign  tribe,  wlio  has  conquered  them,  and,  as  it  has 
been  said,  c vaulted  on  the  back 5 of  them,  or  whose 
ancestors  ha\e  done  so.  These  great  populations,  ruled 
by  a single  will,  have,  doubtless,  trodden  down  and 
destroyed  innumerable  little  cities  who  were  just  be- 
ginning their  freedom. 

In  this  way  the  Greek  cities  in  Asia  were  subjected 
to  the  Persian  Power,  and  so  ought  the  cities  in  Greece 
proper  to  have  been  subjected  also.  Every  schoolboy 
must  have  felt  that  nothing  but  amazing  folly  and  un- 
matched mismanagement  saved  Greece  from  conquest 
both  in  the  time  of  Xerxes  and  in  that  of  Darius.  The 
fortunes  of  intellectual  civilisation  were  then  at  the 
mercy  of  what  seems  an  insignificant  probability.  If 
the  Persian  leaders  had  only  shown  that  decent  skill 
and  ordinary  military  prudence  which  it  was  likely  they 
would  show,  Grecian  freedom  would  have  been  at  an 
end.  Athens,  like  so  many  Ionian  cities  on  the  other 
side  of  the  iEgean,  would  have  been  absorbed  into  a 
great  despotism ; all  we  now  remember  her  for  we 
should  not  remember,  for  it  would  never  have  occurred. 
Her  citizens  might  have  been  ingenious,  and  imitative, 
and  clever;  they  could  not  certainly  have  been  free 
and  original.  Pome  was  preserved  from  subjection  to 
a great  empire  by  her  fortunate  distance  from  one. 
The  early  wars  of  Eome  are  with  cities  like  Pome — 
about  equal  in  size,  though  inferior  in  valour.  It  was 
only  when  she  had  conquered  Italy  that  she  began  to 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


181 


measure  herself  against  Asiatic  despotisms.  She  be- 
came great  enough  to  beat  them  before  she  advanced 
far  enough  to  contend  with  them.  But  such  great  good 
fortune  was  and  must  be  rare.  Unnumbered  little 
cities  which  might  have  rivalled  Rome  or  Athens  doubt- 
less perished  without  a sign  long  before  history  was 
imagined.  The  small  size  and  slight  strength  of  early 
free  states  made  them  always  liable  to  easy  destruction. 

Aud  their  internal  frailty  is  even  greater.  As  soon 
as  discussion  begins  the  savage  propensities  of  men 
break  forth ; even  in  modern  communities,  where  those 
propensities,  too,  have  been  weakened  by  ages  of  cul- 
ture, aud  repressed  by  ages  of  obedience,  as  soon  as  a 
vital  topic  for  discussion  is  well  started  the  keenest  and 
most  violent  passions  break  forth.  Easily  destroyed  as 
are  early  free  states  by  forces  from  without,  they  are 
even  more  liable  to  destruction  by  forces  from  within. 

On  this  account  such  states  are  very  rare  in  history. 
Upon  the  first  view  of  the  facts  a speculation  might  even 
be  set  up  that  they  were  peculiar  to  a particular  race. 
By  far  the  most  important  free  institutions,  and  the  only 
ones  which  have  left  living  representatives  in  the  world, 
are  the  offspring  either  of  the  first  constitutions  of  the 
classical  nations  or  of  the  first  constitutions  of  the  Ger- 
manic nations.  All  living  freedom  runs  back  to  them, 
and  those  truths  which  at  first  sight  would  seem  the 
whole  of  historical  freedom,  can  be  traced  to  them. 
And  both  the  Germanic  and  the  classical  nations  belong 


182 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS, 


to  what  ethnologists  call  the  Aryan  race.  Plausibly  it 
might  be  argued  that  the  power  of  forming  free  states 
was  superior  in  and  peculiar  to  that  family  of  mankind. 
But  unfortunately  for  this  easy  theory  the  facts  are  in- 
consistent with  it.  In  the  first  place,  all  the  so-called 
Aryan  race  certainly  is  not  free.  The  eastern  Aryans — 
those,  for  example,  who  speak  languages  derived  from 
the  Sanscrit — are  amongst  the  most  slavish  divisions  of 
mankind.  To  offer  the  Bengalese  a free  constitution, 
and  to  expect  them  to  work  one,  would  be  the  maximum 
of  human  folly.  There  then  must  be  something  else 
besides  Aryan  descent  which  is  necessary  to  fit  men  for 
discussion  and  train  them  for  liberty ; and,  what  is 
worse  for  the  argument  we  are  opposing,  some  non- 
Aryan  races  have  been  capable  of  freedom.  Carthage, 
for  example,  was  a Semitic  republic.  We  do  not  know 
all  the  details  of  its  constitution,  but  we  know  enough 
for  our  present  purpose.  We  know  that  it  was  a go- 
vernment in  which  many  proposers  took  part,  and  under 
which  discussion  was  constant,  active,  and  conclusive. 
No  doubt  Tyre,  the  parent  city  of  Carthage,  the  other 
colonies  of  Tyre  besides  Carthage,  and  the  colonies  of 
Carthage,  we  re  all  as  free  as  Carthage.  We  have  thus 
a whole  group  of  ancient  republics  of  non- Aryan  race, 
and  one  which,  being  more  ancient  than  the  classical 
republics,  could  not  have  borrowed  from  or  imitated 
them.  So  that  the  theory  which  would  make  govern 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


183 


ment  by  discussion  the  exclusive  patrimony  of  a single 
race  of  mankind  is  on  the  face  of  it  untenable. 

I am  not  prepared  with  any  simple  counter  theory. 
I cannot  profess  to  explain  completely  why  a very  small 
minimum  of  mankind  were,  as  long  as  we  know  of  them, 
possessed  of  a polity  which  as  time  went  on  suggested 
discussions  of  principle,  and  why  the  great  majority  of 
mankind  had  nothing  like  it.  This  is  almost  as  hopeless 
as  asking  why  Milton  was  a genius  and  why  Bacon  was  a 
philosopher.  Indeed  it  is  the  same,  because  the  causes 
which  give  birth  to  the  startling  varieties  of  individual 
character,  and  those  which  give  birth  to  similar  varieties 
of  national  character,  are,  in  fact,  the  same.  I have, 
indeed,  endeavoured  to  show  that  a marked  type  of 
individual  character  once  originating  in  a nation  and 
once  strongly  preferred  by  it,  is  likely  to  be  fixed  on  it 
and  to  be  permanent  in  it,  from  causes  which  were 
stated.  Granted  the  beginning  of  the  type,  we  may,  I 
think,  explain  its  development  and  aggravation  ; but  we 
cannot  in  the  least  explain  why  the  incipient  type  of 
curious  characters  broke  out,  if  I may  so  say,  in  one 
place  rather  than  in  another.  Climate  and  c physical 5 
surroundings,  in  the  largest  sense,  have  unquestionably 
much  influence ; they  are  one  factor  in  the  cause,  but 
they  are  not  the  only  factor  ; for  we  find  most  dissimilar 
races  of  men  living  in  the  same  climate  and  affected  by 
the  same  surroundings,  and  we  have  every  reason  to 
Delieve  that  those  unlike  races  have  so  lived  as  neigh- 


184 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


boars  for  ages.  The  cause  of  types  must  be  something 
outside  the  tribe  acting  on  something  within — some- 
thing inherited  by  the  tribe.  But  what  that  something 
is  I do  not  know  that  any  one  can  in  the  least  explain. 

The  following  conditions  may,  I think,  be  historically 
traced  to  the  nation  capable  of  a polity,  which  suggests 
principles  for  discussion,  and  so  leads  to  progress. 
First,  the  nation  must  possess  the  patria  potestas  in 
some  form  so  marked  as  to  give  family  life  distinctness 
and  precision,  and  to  make  a home  education  and  a 
home  discipline  probable  and  possible.  While  descent 
is  traced  only  through  the  mother,  and  while  the  family 
is  therefore  a vague  entity,  no  progress  to  a high  polity 
is  possible.  Secondly,  that  polity  would  seem  to  have 
been  created  very  gradually ; by  the  aggregation  of 
families  into  clans  or  gentes , and  of  clans  into  nations, 
and  then  again  by  the  widening  of  nations,  so  as  to 
include  circumjacent  outsiders,  as  well  as  the  first 
compact  and  sacred  group— the  number  of  parties  to  a 
discussion  was  at  first  augmented  very  slowly.  Thirdly, 
the  number  of  ‘ open  5 subjects — as  we  should  say  now- 
adays— that  is,  of  subjects  on  which  public  opinion  was 
optional,  and  on  which  discussion  was  admitted,  was  at 
first  very  small.  Custom  ruled  everything  originally, 
and  the  area  of  free  argument  was  enlarged  but  very 
slowly.  If  I am  at  all  right,  that  area  could  only  be 
enlarged  thus  slowly,  for  custom  was  in  early  days  the 
cement  of  society,  and  if  you  suddenly  questioned  sucb 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


185 


custom  you  would  destroy  society.  But  tliough  the 
existence  of  these  conditions  may  be  traced  historically, 
and  though  the  reason  of  them  may  be  explained  philo- 
sophically, they  do  not  completely  solve  the  question 
why  some  nations  have  the  polity  and  some  not;  on  the 
contrary,  they  plainly  leave  a large  ‘ residual  pheno- 
menon ’ unexplained  and  unknown. 


II. 

In  this  manner  politics  or  discussion  broke  up  the  old 
bonds  of  custom  which  were  now  strangling  mankind, 
though  they  had  once  aided  and  helped  it.  But  this  is 
only  one  of  the  many  gifts  which  those  polities  have 
conferred,  are  conferring,  and  will  confer  on  mankind. 
I am  not  going  to  write  an  eulogium  on  liberty,  but  I 
wish  to  set  down  three  points  which  have  not  been  suf- 
ficiently noticed. 

Civilised  ages  inherit  the  human  nature  which  was 
victorious  in  barbarous  ages,  and  that  nature  is,  in 
many  respects,  not  at  all  suited  to  civilised  circum- 
stances. A main  and  principal  excellence  in  the  early 
times  of  the  human  races  is  the  impulse  to  action.  The 
problems  before  men  are  then  plain  and  simple.  The 
man  who  works  hardest,  the  man  who  kills  the  most 
deer,  the  man  who  catches  the  most  fish — even  later 
on,  the  man  who  tends  the  largest  herds,  or  the  man 
who  tills  the  largest  field — is  the  man  who  succeeds; 


136 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


the  nation  which  is  quickest  to  kill  its  enemies,  or  which 
kills  most  of  its  enemies,  is  the  nation  which  succeeds. 
All  the  inducements  of  early  society  tend  to  foster  im- 
mediate action ; all  its  penalties  fall  on  the  man  who 
pauses ; the  traditional  wisdom  of  those  times  was  never 
weary  of  inculcating  that  6 delays  are  dangerous/  and 
that  the  sluggish  man — the  man  6 who  roasteth  not 
that  which  he  took  in  hunting  ’ — will  not  prosper  on 
the  earth,  and  indeed  will  very  soon  perish  out  of  it. 
And  in  consequence  an  inability  to  stay  quiet,  an  irri- 
table desire  to  act  directly,  is  one  of  the  most  conspicuous 
failings  of  mankind. 

Pascal  said  that  most  of  the  evils  of  life  arose  from 
i man’s  being  unable  to  sit  still  in  a room ; ’ and  though 
I do  not  go  that  length,  it  is  certain  that  we  should 
have  been  a far  wiser  race  than  we  are  if  we  had  been 
readier  to  sit  quiet — we  should  have  known  much  better 
the  way  in  which  it  was  best  to  act  when  we  came  to 
act.  The  rise  of  physical  science,  the  first  great  body 
of  practical  truth  provable  to  all  men,  exemplifies  this 
in  the  plainest  way.,  If  it  had  not  been  for  quiet  people, 
wdio  sat  still  and  studied  the  sections  of  the  cone,  if 
other  quiet  people  had  not  sat  still  and  studied  the 
theory  of  infinitesimals,  or  other  quiet  people  had  not 
sat  still  and  w7orked  out  the  doctrine  of  chances,  the 
most  6 dreamy  moonshine,’  as  the  purely  practical  mind 
would  consider,  of  all  human  pursuits ; if 6 idle  star-gazers 5 
had  not  watched  long  and  carefully  the  motions  of  the 


THE  AGrE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


187 


heavenly  bodies  — our  modern  astronomy  would  have 
been  impossible,  and  without  our  astronomy  ‘ our  ships, 
our  colonies,  our  seamen/  all  which  makes  modern  life 
modern  life  could  not  have  existed.  Ages  of  sedentary, 
quiet,  thinking  people  were  required  before  that  noisy 
existence  began,  and  without  those  pale  preliminary 
students  it  never  could  have  been  brought  into  being. 
And  nine-tenths  of  modern  science  is  in  this  respect  the 
same  : it  is  the  produce  of  men  whom  their  contem- 
poraries thought  dreamers — who  were  laughed  at  for 
caring  for  what  did  not  concern  them — who,  as  the  pro- 
verb went,  6 walked  into  a well  from  looking  at  the 
stars ? — who  were  believed  to  be  useless,  if  any  one 
could  be  such.  And  the  conclusion  is  plain  that  if  there 
had  been  more  such  people,  if  the  world  had  not  laughed 
at  those  there  were,  if  rather  it  had  encouraged  them, 
there  would  have  been  a great  accumulation  of  proved 
science  ages  before  there  was.  It  was  the  irritable 
activity,  the  ‘ wish  to  be  doing  something/  that  pre- 
vented it.  Most  men  inherited  a nature  too  eager  and 
too  restless  to  be  quiet  and  find  out  things;  and  even 
worse — with  their  idle  clamour  they  ‘ disturbed  the 
brooding  hen/  they  would  not  let  those  be  quiet  who 
wished  to  be  so,  and  out  of  whose  calm  thought  much 
good  might  have  come  forth. 

If  we  consider  how  much  science  has  done  and  how 
much  it  is  doing  for  mankind,  and  if  the  over- activity 
of  men  is  proved  to  be  the  cause  why  science  came  so 


188 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


late  into  the  world,  and  is  so  small  and  scanty  still,  that 
will  convince  most  people  that  our  over-activity  is  a 
very  great  evil.  But  this  is  only  part,  and  perhaps  not 
the  greatest  part  of  the  harm  that  over-activity  does. 
As  I have  said,  it  is  inherited  from  times  when  life  was 
simple,  objects  were  plain,  and  quick  action  generally 
led  to  desirable  ends.  If  A kills  B before  B kills  A, 
then  A survives,  and  the  human  race  is  a race  of  A’s. 
But  the  issues  of  life  are  plain  no  longer.  To  act  rightly 
J u^in  modern  society  requires  a great  deal  of  previous  study, 
a great  deal  of  assimilated  information,  a great  deal 
of  sharpened  imagination ; and  these  pre-requisites  of 
sound  action  require  much  time,  and,  I was  going  to 
say,  much  6 lying  in  the  sun,’  a long  period  of  ‘ mere 
passiveness.’  Even  the  art  of  killing  one  another, 
which  at  first  particularly  trained  men  to  be  quick,  now 
requires  them  to  be  slow.  A hasty  general  is  the  worst 
of  generals  now-a-days ; the  best  is  a sort  of  Yon 
Moltke,  who  is  passive  if  any  man  ever  was  passive ; 
who  is  6 silent  in  seven  languages;’  who  possesses  more 
and  better  accumulated  information  as  to  the  best  way 
of  killing  people  than  any  one  who  ever  lived.  This 
man  plays  a restrained  and  considerate  game  of  chess 
with  his  enemy.  I wish  the  art  of  benefiting  men  had 
kept  pace  with  the  art  of  destroying  them  ; for  though 
war  has  become  slow,  philanthropy  has  remained  hasty. 
The  most  melancholy  of  human  reflections,  perhaps,  is 
that,  on  the  whole,  it  is  a question  whether  the  benevo- 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


189 


lence  of  mankind  does  most  good  or  harm.  Great  good, 
no  doubt,  philanthropy  does,  but  then  it  also  does  great 
evil.  It  augments  so  much  vice,  it  multiplies  so  much 
suffering,  it  brings  to  life  such  great  populations  to 
suffer  and  to  be  vicious,  that  it  is  open  to  argument 
whether  it  be  or  be  not  an  evil  to  the  world,  and  this  is 
entirely  because  excellent  people  fancy  that  they  can  do 
much  by  rapid  action — that  they  will  most  benefit  the 
world  when  they  most  relieve  their  own  feelings  ; that 
as  soon  as  an  evil  is  seen  6 something 5 ought  to  be  done 
to  stay  and  prevent  it.  One  may  incline  to  hope  that 
the  balance  of  good  over  evil  is  in  favour  of  benevo- 
lence ; one  can  hardly  bear  to  think  that  it  is  not  so ; 
but  anyhow  it  is  certain  that  there  is  a most  heavy  debit 
of  evil,  and  that  this  burden  might  almost  all  have  been 
spared  us  if  philanthropists  as  well  as  others  had  not 
inherited  from  their  barbarous  forefathers  a wild  passion 
for  instant  action. 

Even  in  commerce,  which  is  now  the  main  occupation 
of  mankind,  and  one  in  which  there  is  a ready  test  of 
success  and  failure  wanting  in  many  higher  pursuits, 
the  same  disposition  to  excessive  action  is  very  apparent 
to  careful  observers.  Part  of  ever}  mania  is  caused  by 
the  impossibility  to  get  people  to  confine  themselves  to 
the  amount  of  business  for  which  their  capital  is  suffi- 
cient, and  in  which  they  can  engage  safely.  In  some 
degree,  of  course,  this  is  caused  by  the  wish  to  get 
rich;  but  in  a considerable  degree,  too, by  the  mere  love 


190 


PHYSTCS  AND  POLITICS. 


of  activity.  There  is  a greater  propensity  to  action  in 
such  men  than  they  have  the  means  of  gratifying. 
Operations  with  their  own  capital  will  only  occupy  four 
hours  of  the  day,  and  they  wish  to  be  active  and  to  be 
industrious  for  eight  hours,  and  so  they  are  ruined.  If 
they  could  only  have  sat  idle  the  other  four  hours,  they 
would  have  been  rich  men.  The  amusements  of  man- 
kind, at  least  of  the  English  part  of  mankind,  teach  the 
same  lesson.  Our  shooting,  our  hunting,  our  travelling, 
our  climbing  have  become  laborious  pursuits.  It  is  a 
common  saying  abroad  that  ‘ an  Englishman’s  notion  of 
a holiday  is  a fatiguing  journey;’  and  this  is  only  another 
way  of  saying  that  the  immense  energy  and  activity 
which  have  given  us  our  place  in  the  world  have  in 
many  cases  descended  to  those  who  do  not  find  in 
modern  life  any  mode  of  using  that  activity,  and  of 
venting  that  energy. 

Even  the  abstract  speculations  of  mankind  bear  con- 
spicuous traces  of  the  same  excessive  impulse.  Every 
sort  of  philosophy  has  been  systematised,  and  yet  as 
these  philosophies  utterly  contradict  one  another,  most- 
of  them  cannot  be  true.  Unproved  abstract  principles 
without  number  have  been  eagerly  caught  up  by  san- 
guine men,  and  then  carefully  spun  out  into  books  and 
theories,  which  were  to  explain  the  whole  world.  But 
the  world  goes  clear  against  these  abstractions,  and  it 
must  do  so,  as  they  require  it  to  go  in  antagonistic 
directions.  The  mass  of  a system  att^cts  the  young 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


191 


and  impresses  the  unwary ; but  cultivated  people  are 
very  dubious  about  it.  They  are  ready  to  receive  hints 
and  suggestions,  and  the  smallest  real  truth  is  ever  wel- 
come. But  a large  book  of  deductive  philosophy  is 
much  to  be  suspected.  No  doubt  the  deductions  may 
be  right;  in  most  writers  they  are  so;  but  where  did 
the  premises  come  from  ? Who  is  sure  that  they  are 
the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  of  the 
matter  in  hand  ? Who  is  not  almost  sure  beforehand 
that  they  will  contain  a strange  mixture  of  truth  and 
error,  and  therefore  that  it  will  not  be  worth  while  to 
spend  life  in  reasoning  over  their  consequences.  In  a 
word,  the  superfluous  energy  of  mankind  has  flowed 
over  into  philosophy,  and  has  worked  into  big  systems 
what  should  have  been  left  as  little  suggestions. 
r And  if  the  old  systems  of  thought  are  not  true  aa 
systems,  neither  is  the  new  revolt  from  them  to  bo 
trusted  in  its  whole  vigour.  There  is  the  same  original 
vice  in  that  also.  There  is  an  excessive  energy  in  re- 
volutions if  there  is  such  energy  anywhere.  The  pas- 
sion for  action  is  quite  as  ready  to  pull  down  as  to 
build  up  ; probably  it  is  more  ready,  for  the  task  is 
easier 

* Old  things  need  not  be  therefore  true, 

0 brother  men,  nor  yet  the  new  ; 

Ah,  still  awhile  the  old  thought  retain, 

And  jet  consider  it  again/ 


But  this  is  exactly  what  the  human  mind  will  not 


192 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


do.  It  will  act  somehow  at  once.  It  will  not 6 consider 
it  again.5 

But  it  will  be  said,  What  has  government  by  discus- 
sion to  do  with  these  things  ? Will  it  prevent  them,  or 
even  mitigate  them  ? It  can  and  does  do  both  in  the  very 
plainest  way.  If  you  want  to  stop  instant  and  imme- 
diate action,  always  make  it  a condition  that  the  action 
shall  not  begin  till  a considerable  number  of  persons 
have  talked  over  it,  and  have  agreed  on  it.  If  those 
persons  be  people  of  different  temperaments,  different 
ideas,  and  different  educations,  you  have  an  almost  in- 
fallible security  that  nothing,  or  almost  nothing,  will  be 
done  with  excessive  rapidity.  Each  kind  of  persons  will 
have  their  spokesman ; each  spokesman  will  have  his 
characteristic  objection,  and  each  his  characteristic 
counter- proposition,  and  so  in  the  end  nothing  will 
probably  be  done,  or  at  least  only  the  minimum  which 
is  plainly  urgent.  In  many  cases  this  delay  may  be 
dangerous ; in  many  cases  quick  action  will  be  prefer- 
able. A campaign,  as  Macaulay  well  says,  cannot  be 
directed  by  a c debating  society ; 5 and  many  other  kinds 
of  action  also  require  a single  and  absolute  general. 
But  for  the  purpose  now  in  hand — that  of  preventing 
hasty  action,  and  ensuring  elaborate  consideration — 
there  is  no  device  like  a polity  of  discussion. 

The  enemies  of  this  object — the  people  who  want  to 
act  quickly — see  this  very  distinctly.  They  are  for 
ever  explaining  that  the  present  is  ‘ an  age  of  com- 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


193 


mittees,’  that  the  committees  do  nothing,  that  all 
evaporates  in  talk.  Their  great  enemy  is  parliamentary 
government ; they  call  it,  after  Mr.  Carlyle,  the 
c national  palaver; 5 they  add  up  the  hours  that  are 
consumed  in  it,  and  the  speeches  which  are  made  in  it, 
and  they  sigh  for  a time  when  England  might  again  be 
ruled,  as  it  once  was,  by  a Cromwell-  -that  is,  when  an 
eager,  absolute  man  might  do  exactly  what  other  eager 
men  wished,  and  do  it  immediately.  All  these  invec- 
tives are  perpetual  and  many-sided ; they  come  from 
philosophers,  each  of  whom  wants  some  new  scheme 
tried  ; from  philanthropists,  who  want  some  evil  abated; 
from  revolutionists,  who  want  some  old  institution  de- 
stroyed; from  new  seraists,  who  want  their  new  sera 
started  forthwith.  And  they  all  are  distinct  admissions 
that  a polity  of  discussion  is  the  greatest  hindrance  to 
the  inherited  mistake  of  human  nature,  to  the  desire  to 
act  promptly,  which  in  a simple  age  is  so  excellent, 
but  which  in  a later  and  complex  time  leads  to  so  much 
evil. 

The  same  accusation  against  our  age  sometimes  takes 
a more  general  form.  It  is  alleged  that  our  energies 
are  diminishing ; that  ordinary  and  average  men  have 
not  the  quick  determination  nowadays  which  they  used 
to  have  when  the  world  was  younger;  that  not  only  do 
not  committees  and  parliaments  act  with  rapid  decisive- 
ness, but  that  no  one  now  so  acts.  And  I hope  that  in 
fact  this  is  true,  for  according  to  me,  it  proves  that  the 


194 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


hereditary  barbaric  impulse  is  decaying  and  dying  out* 
So  far  from  thinking  the  quality  attributed  to  us  a de- 
fect, I wish  that  those  who  complain  of  it  were  far  more 
right  than  I much  fear  they  are.  Still,  certainly,  eagei 
and  violent  action  is  somewhat  diminished,  though  only 
by  a small  fraction  of  what  it  ought  to  be.  And  I be- 
lieve that  this  is  in  great  part  due,  in  England  at  least, 
to  our  government  by  discussion,  which  has  fostered  a 
general  intellectual  tone,  a diffused  disposition  to  weigh 
evidence,  a conviction  that  much  may  be  said  on  every 
side  of  everything  which  the  elder  and  more  fanatic 
ages  of  the  world  wanted.  This  is  the  real  reason  why 
our  energies  seem  so  much  less  than  those  of  our  fathers 
When  we  have  a definite  end  in  view,  which  we  know 
we  want,  and  which  we  think 'we  know  how  to  obtain, 
we  can  act  well  enough.  The  campaigns  of  our  soldiers 
i.re  as  energetic  as  any  campaigns  ever  were ; the 
speculations  of  our  merchants  have  greater  prompti- 
tude, greater  audacity,  greater  vigour  than  any  such 
speculations  ever  had  before.  In  old  times  a few  ideas 
got  possession  of  men  and  communities,  but  this  is 
happily  now  possible  no  longer.  We  see  how  incom- 
plete these  old  ideas  were ; how  almost  by  chance  one 
aeized  on  one  nation,  and  another  on  another ; how  often 
one  set  of  men  have  persecuted  another  set  for  opinions 
on  subjects  of  which  neither,  we  now  perceive,  knew 
anything.  It  might  be  well  if  a greater  number  of 
effectual  demonstrations  existed  among  mankind  ; but 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


195 


while  no  such  demonstrations  exist,  and  while  the  evi- 
dence which  completely  convinces  one  man  seems  to 
another  trifling  and  insufficient,  let  ns  recognise  the 
plain  position  of  inevitable  doubt.  Let  us  not  be  bigots 
with  a doubt,  and  persecutors  without  a creed.  We  are 
beginning  to  see  this,  and  wre  are  railed  at  for  so  be- 
ginning. But  it  is  a great  benefit,  and  it  is  to  the  in- 
cessant prevalence  of  detective  discussion  that  our 
doubts  are  due  ; and  much  of  that  discussion  is  due  to 
the  long  existence  of  a government  requiring  constant 
debates,  written  and  oral.  / 

This  is  one  of  the  unrecognised  benefits  of  free 
government,  one  of  the  modes  in  which  it  counteracts 
the  'excessive  inherited  impulses  of  humanity.  There 
is  another  also  for  which  it  does  the  same,  but  which 
I can  only  touch  delicately,  and  wliihh  at  first  sight 
will  seem  ridiculous.  The  most  successful  races,  other 
things  being  equal,  are  those  which  multiply  the  fastest. 
In  the  conflicts  of  mankind  numbers  have  ever  been  a 
great  power.  The  most  numerous  group  has  always 
had  an  advantage  over  the  less  numerous,  and  the 
fastest  breeding  group  has  always  tended  to  be  the  most 
numerous.  In  consequence,  human  nature  has  de- 
scended into  a comparatively  uncontentious  civilisation, 
with  a desire  far  in  excess  of  what  is  needed ; with  a 
4 felt  want,5  as  political  economists  would  say,  altogether 
greater  than  the  4 real  want.5  A walk  in  London  is  all 
which  is  necessary  to  establish  this.  4 The  great  sin  of 


196 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


great  cities  5 is  one  vast  evil  consequent  upon  it.  And 
who  is  to  reckon  up  how  much  these  words  mean? 
How  many  spoiled  lives,  now  many  broken  hearts,  how 
many  wasted  bodies,  how  many  ruined  minds,  how 
much  misery  pretending  to  be  gay,  how  much  gaiety 
feeling  itself  to  be  miserable,  how  much  after  mental 
pain,  how  much  eating  and  transmitted  disease.  And 
in  the  moral  part  of  the  world,  how  many  minds  are 
racked  by  incessant  anxiety,  how  many  thoughtful 
imaginations  which  might  have  left  something  to  man- 
kind are  debased  to  mean  cares,  how  much  every  suc- 
cessive generation  sacrifices  to  the  next,  how  little  does 
any  of  them  make  of  itself  in  comparison  with  what 
might  be.  And  how  many  Irelands  have  there  been  in 
the  world  where  men  would  have  been  contented  and 
happy  if  they  had  only  been  fewer ; how  many  more 
[relands  would  there  have  been  if  the  intrusive  numbers 
had  not  been  kept  down  by  infanticide  and  vice  and 
misery.  How  painful  is  the  conclusion  that  it  is 
dubious  whether  all  the  machines  and  inventions  of 
mankind  ‘have  yet  lightened  the  day’s  labour  of  a 
human  being.5  They  have  enabled  more  people  to 
exist,  but  these  people  work  just  as  hard  and  are  just 
as  mean  and  miserable  as  the  elder  and  the  fewer. 

But  it  will  be  said  of  this  passion  just  as  it  was  said 
of  the  passion  of  activity.  Granted  that  it  is  in  ex- 
cess, how  can  you  suy,  how  on  earth  can  anyone  say, 
that  government  by  discussion  can  in  any  way  cure  or 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


197 


diminish  it  ? Cure  this  evil  that  government  certainly 
will  not ; but  tend  to  diminish  it— I think  it  does  and 
may.  To  show  that  I am  not  making  premises  to  sup- 
port a conclusion  so  abnormal,  I will  quote  a passage 
from  Mr.  Spencer,  the  philosopher  who  has  done  most 
to  illustrate  this  subject : — 

6 That  future  progress  of  civilisation  which  the  never- 
ceasing  pressure  of  population  must  produce,  will  be 
accompanied  by  an  enhanced  cost  of  Individuation, 
both  in  structure  and  function  ; and  more  especially  in 
nervous  structure  and  function.  The  peaceful  struggle 
for  existence  in  societies  ever  growing  more  crowded 
and  more  complicated,  must  have  for  its  concomitant 
an  increase  of  the  great  nervous  centres  in  mass,  in 
complexity,  in  activity.  The  larger  body  of  emotion 
needed  as  a fountain  of  energy  for  men  who  have  to 
hold  their  places  and  rear  their  families  under  the  in- 
tensifying competition  of  social  life,  is,  other  things 
equal,  the  correlative  of  larger  brain.  Those  higher 
feelings  presupposed  by  the  better  self-regulation  which, 
in  a better  society,  can  alone  enable  the  individual  to 
leave  a persistent  posterity,  are,  other  things  equal,  the 
correlatives  of  a more  complex  brain ; as  are  also  those 
more  numerous,  more  varied,  more  general,  and  more 
abstract  ideas,  which  must  also  become  increasingly 
requisite  for  successful  life  as  society  advances.  And 
the  genesis  of  this  larger  quantity  of  feeling  and 
thought  in  a brain  thus  augmented  in  size  and  de- 


198 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


veloped  in  structure,  is,  other  things  equal,  the  corre- 
lative of  a greater  wear  of  nervous  tissue  and  greater 
consumption  of  materials  to  repair  it.  So  that  both  in 
original  cost  of  construction  and  in  subsequent  cost  of 
working,  the  nervous  system  must  become  a heavier  tax 
on  the  organism.  Already  the  brain  of  the  civilised 
man  is  larger  by  nearly  thirty  per  cent,  than  the  brain 
of  the  savage.  Already,  too,  it  presents  an  increased 
heterogeneity — especially  in  the  distribution  of  its  con- 
volutions. And  further  changes  like  these  which  have 
taken  place  under  the  discipline  of  civilised  life,  we 
infer  will  continue  to  take  place.  . . . But  everywhere 
and  always,  evolution  is  antagonistic  to  procreative 
dissolution.  Whether  it  be  in  greater  growth  of  the 
organs  which  subserve  self-maintenance,  whether  it  be 
in  their  added  complexity  of  structure,  or  whether  it  be 
in  their  higher  activity,  the  abstraction  of  the  required 
materials  implies  a diminished  reserve  of  materials  for 
race-maintenance.  And  we  have  seen  reason  to  believe 
that  this  antagonism  between  Individuation  and  Genesis 
becomes  unusually  marked  where  the  nervous  system  is 
concerned,  because  of  the  costliness  of  nervous  structure 
and  function.  In  § 346  was  pointed  out  the  apparent 
connection  between  high  cerebral  development  and  pro- 
longed delay  of  sexual  maturity ; and  in  §§  366,  367, 
the  evidence  went  to  show  that  where  exceptional  fer- 
tility exists  there  is  sluggishness  of  mind,  and  that 
where  there  has  been  during  education  excessive  ex- 


THE  AGE  OF  DISCUSSION. 


199 


penditure  in  mental  action,  there  frequently  follows  a 
complete  or  partial  infertility.  Hence  the  particular 
kind  of  further  evolution  which  Man  is  hereafter  to 
% undergo,  is  one.  which,  more  than  any  other,  may  be 
expected  to  cause  a decline  in  his  power  of  repro- 
duction.’ 

This  means  that  men  who  have  to  live  an  intellectual 
life,  or  who  can  be  induced  to  lead  one,  will  be  likely 
not  to  have  so  many  children  as  they  would  otherwise 
have  had.  In  particular  cases  this  may  not  be  true ; 
such  men  may  even  have  many  children — they  may  be 
men  in  all  ways  of  unusual  power  and  vigour.  But  they 
will  not  have  their  maximum  of  posterity — will  not  have 
so  many  as  they  would  have  had  if  they  had  been  care- 
less or  thoughtless  men ; and  so,  upon  an  average,  the 
issue  of  such  intellectualised  men  will  be  less  numerous 
than  those  of  the  unintellectual. 

Now,  supposing  this  philosophical  doctrine  to  be  true 
- -and  the  best  philosophers,  I think,  believe  it — its 
application  to  the  case  in  hand  is  plain.  Nothing  pro- 
motes intellect  like  intellectual  discussion,  and  nothing 
promotes  intellectual  discussion  so  much  as  government 
by  discussion.  The  perpetual  atmosphere  of  intellectual 
inquiry  acts  powerfully,  as  everyone  may  see  by  looking 
about  him  in  London,  upon  the  constitution  both  ol 
men  and  women.  There  is  only  a certain  quantum  of 
power  in  each  of  our  race ; if  it  goes  in  one  way  it  is 
spent,  and  cannot  go  in  another.  The  intellectual  at 


14 


200 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


mosphere  abstracts  strength  to  intellectual  matters ; it 
tends  to  divert  that  strength  which  the  circumstances 
of  early  society  directed  to  the  multiplication  of  num- 
bers ; and  as  a polity  of  discussion  tends,  above  all 
things,  to  produce  an  intellectual  atmosphere,  the  two 
things  which  seemed  so  far  off  have  been  shown  to  be 
near,  and  free  government  has,  in  a second  case,  been 
shown  to  tend  to  cure  an  inherited  excess  of  human 
nature. 

Lastly,  a polity  of  discussion  not  only  tends  to 
diminish  our  inherited  defects,  but  also,  in  one  case  at 
least,  to  augment  a heritable  excellence.  It  tends  to 
strengthen  and  increase  a subtle  quality  or  combination 
of  qualities  singularly  useful  in  practical  life — a quality 
which  it  is  not  easy  to  describe  exactly,  and  the  issues 
of  which  it  would  require  not  a remnant  of  an  essay, 
but  a whole  essay  to  elucidate  completely.  This  quality 
I call  animated  moderation. 

If  anyone  were  asked  to  describe  what  it  is  which 
distinguishes  the  writings  of  a man  of  genius  who  is 
also  a great  man  of  the  world  from  all  other  writings,  I 
think  he  would  use  these  same  words,  ‘ animated  mo- 
deration.5 He  would  say  that  such  writings  are  never 
slow,  are  never  excessive,  are  never  exaggerated ; that 
they  are  always  instinct  with  judgment,  and  yet  that 
judgment  is  never  a dull  judgment ; that  they  have  as 
much  spirit  in  them  as  would  go  to  make  a wild  writer, 
and  yet  that  every  line  of  them  is  the  product  of  a sane 


THE  AGE  OE  DISCUSSION. 


201 


and  sound  writer.  The  best  and  almost  perfect  in- 
stance of  this  in  English  is  Scott.  Homer  was  perfect 
in  it,  as  far  as  we  can  judge  ; Shakespeare  is  often  per- 
fect in  it  for  long  together,  though  then,  from  the  defects 
of  a bad  education  and  a vicious  age,  all  at  once  he  loses 
himself  in  excesses.  Still,  Homer,  and  Shakespeare  at 
his  best,  and  Scott,  though  in  other  respects  so  unequal 
to  them,  have  this  remarkable  quality  in  common — 
this  union  of  life  with  measure,  of  spirit  with  reason- 
ableness. 

In  action  it  is  equally  this  quality  in  which  the 
English — at  least  so  I claim  it  for  them — excel  all 
other  nations.  There  is  an  infinite  deal  to  be  laid 
against  us,  and  as  we  are  unpopular  with  most  others, 
and  as  we  are  always  grumbling  at  ourselves,  there  is 
no  want  of  people  to  say  it.  But,  after  all,  in  a certain 
sense,  England  is  a success  in  the  world ; her  career 
has  had  many  faults,  but  still  it  has  been  a fine  and 
winning  career  upon  the  whole.  And  this  on  account 
of  the  exact  possession  of  this  particular  quality. 
What  is  the  making  of  a successful  merchant  ? That 
he  has  plenty  of  energy,  and  yet  that  he  does  not  go 
too  far.  And  if  you  ask  for  a description  of  a great 
practical  Englishman,  you  will  be  sure  to  have  this,  or 
something  like  it,  ‘ Oh,  he  has  plenty  of  go  in  him ; but 
he  knows  when  to  pull  up.5  He  may  have  all  other 
defects  in  him  ; he  may  be  coarse,  he  may  be  illiterate, 
he  may  be  stupid  to  talk  to ; still  this  great  union  of 


202 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


spur  and  bridle,  of  energy  and  moderation,  will  remain 
to  him.  Probably  he  will  hardly  be  able  to  explain  why 
he  stops  when  he  does  stop,  or  why  he  continued  to 
move  as  long  as  he,  in  fact,  moved;  but  still,  as  by 
a rough  instinct,  he  pulls  up  pretty  much  where  he 
should,  though  he  was  going  at  such  a pace  before. 

There  is  no  better  example  of  this  quality  in  English 
statesmen  .than  Lord  Palmerston.  There  are,  of  course, 
many  most  serious  accusations  to  be  made  against  him. 
The  sort  of  homage  with  which  he  was  regarded  in  the 
last  years  of  his  life  has  passed  away  ; the  spell  is 
broken,  and  the  magic  cannot  be  again  revived.  We 
may  think  that  his  information  was  meagre,  that  his 
imagination  was  narrow,  that  his  aims  were  short- 
sighted and  faulty.  But  though  we  may  often  object 
to  his  objects,  we  rarely  find  much  to  criticise  in 
his  means.  ‘ He  went,5  it  has  been  said,  c with  a great 
swing  ; 5 but  he  never  tumbled  over ; he  always  managed 
to  pull  up  ‘ before  there  was  any  danger.5  He  was  an 
odd  man  to  have  inherited  Hampden’s  motto ; still,  in 
fact,  there  was  a great  trace  in  him  of  mediocria  jirma 
— as  much,  probably,  as  there  could  be  in  anyone  of 
such  great  vivacity  and  buoyancy. 

It  is  plain  that  this  is  a quality  which  as  much  as,  if  not 
more  than,  any  other  multiplies  good  results  in  practical 
life.  It  enables  men  to  see  what  is  good ; it  gives  them 
intellect  enough  for  sufficient  perception;  but  it  does 
not  make  men  all  intellect ; it  does  not  6 sickly  them 


THE  AGE.  OF  DISCUSSION. 


203 


o’er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought ; 9 it  enables  them  to 
do  the  good  things  they  see  to  be  good,  as  well  as  to 
see  that  they  are  good.  And  it  is  plain  that  a govern- 
ment by  popular  discussion  tends  to  produce  this 
quality.  A strongly  idiosyncratic  mind,  violently  dis- 
posed to  extremes  of  opinion,  is  soon  weeded  out  of  poli- 
tical life,  and  a bodiless  thinker,  an  ineffectual  scholar, 
cannot  even  live  there  for  a day.  A vigorous  moderate- 
ness in  mind  and  body  is  the  rule  of  a polity  which 
works  by  discussion ; and,  upon  the  whole,  it  is  the 
kind  of  temper  most  suited  to  the  active  life  of  such  a 
being  as  man  in  such  a world  as  the  present  one. 

These  three  great  benefits  of  free  government,  though 
great,  are  entirely  secondary  to  its  continued  usefulness 
in  the  mode  in  which  it  originally  was  useful.  The  first 
great  benefit  was  the  deliverance  of  mankind  from  the 
superannuated  yoke  of  customary  law,  by  the  gradual 
development  of  an  inquisitive  originality.  And  it  con- 
tinues to  produce  that  effect  upon  persons  apparently 
far  remote  from  its  influence,  and  on  subjects  with 
which  it  has  nothing  to  do.  Thus  Mr.  Mundella,  a 
most  experienced  and  capable  judge,  tells  us  that  the 
English  artisan,  though  so  much  less  sober,  less  in- 
structed, and  less  refined  than  the  artisans  of  some 
other  countries,  is  yet  more  inventive  than  any  other 
artisan.  The  master  will  get  more  good’  suggestions 
from  him  than  from  any  other. 

Again,  upon  plausible  grounds — looking,  for  example, 


201 


PHYSIOS  AND  POLITICS. 


to  the  position  of  Locke  and  Newton  in  the  science  of 
the  last  century,  and  to  that  of  Darwin  in  our  own — it 
may  be  argued  that  there  is  some  quality  in  English 
thought  which  makes  them  strike  out  as  many,  if  not 
more,  first-rate  and  original  suggestions  than  nations  of 
greater  scientific  culture  and  more  diffused  scientific 
interest.  In  both  cases  I believe  the  reason  of  the 
English  originality  to  be  that  government  by  discussion 
quickens  and  enlivens  thought  all  through  society ; that 
it  makes  people  think  no  harm  may  come  of  thinking ; 
that  in  England  this  force  has  long  been  operating,  and 
so  it  has  developed  more  of  all  kinds  of  people  ready  to 
use  their  mental  energy  in  their  own  way,  and  not  ready 
to  use  it  in  any  other  way,  than  a despotic  government. 
And  so  rare  is  great  originality  among  mankind,  and  so 
great  are  its  fruits,  that  this  one  benefit  of  free  govern- 
ment probably  outweighs  what  are  in  many  cases  its 
accessory  evils.  Of  itself  it  justifies,  or  goes  far  to 
justify,  our  saying  with  Montesquieu,  6 Whatever  be 
the  cost  of  this  glorious  liberty,  we  must  be  content  to 
pay  it  to  heaven. 


m.  vi. 

VERIFIABLE  PROGRESS  POLITICALLY  CONSIDERED . 

The  original  publication  of  these  essays  was  interrupted 
by  serious  illness  and  by  long  consequent  ill-health, 
and  now  that  I am  putting  them  together  I wish  to 
add  another  which  shall  shortly  explain  the  main  thread 
of  the  argument  which  they  contain.  In  doing  so 
there  is  a risk  of  tedious  repetition,  but  on  a subject 
both  obscure  and  important,  any  defect  is  better  than 
an  appearance  of  vagueness. 

In  a former  essay  I attempted  to  show  that  slighter 
causes  than  is  commonly  thought  may  change  a nation 
from  the  stationary  to  the  progressive  state  of  civilisa- 
tion, and  from  the  stationary  to  the  degrading.  Com- 
monly the  effect  of  the  agent  is  looked  on  in  the  wrong 
way.  It  is  considered  as  operating  on  every  individual 
in  the  nation,  and  it  is  assumed,  or  half  assumed,  that 
it  is  only  the  effect  which  the  agent  directly  produces  on 
everyone  that  need  be  considered.  But  besides  this 
diffused  effect  of  the  first  impact  of  the  cause,  there  is 
a second  effect,  always  considerable,  and  commonly  more 
potent — a new  model  in  character  is  created  for  the 


206 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


nation ; those  characters  which  resemble  it  are  en- 
couraged and  multiplied ; those  contrasted  with  it  are 
persecuted  and  made  fewer.  In  a generation  or  two, 
the  look  of  the  nation  becomes  quite  different ; the 
characteristic  men  who  stand  out  are  different,  the 
men  imitated  are  different ; the  result  of  the  imitation 
is  different.  A lazy  nation  may  be  changed  into  an 
industrious,  a rich  into  a poor,  a religious  into  a pro- 
fane, as  if  by  magic,  if  any  single  cause,  though  slight, 
or  any  combination  of  causes,  however  subtle,  is  strong 
enough  to  change  the  favourite  and  detested  types  of 
character. 

This  principle  will,  I think,  help  us  in  trying  to  solve 
the  question  why  so  few  nations  have  progressed, 
though  to  us  progress  seems  so  natural — what  is  the 
cause  or  set  of  causes  which  have  prevented  that  progress 
in  the  vast  majority  of  cases,  and  produced  it  in  the  feeble 
minority.  But  there  is  a preliminary  difficulty  : What 
is  progress,  and  what  is  decline  ? Even  in  the  animal 
world  there  is  no  applicable  rule  accepted  by  physiolo- 
gists, which  settles  what  animals  are  higher  or  lower 
than  others ; there  are  controversies  about  it.  Still 
more  then  in  the  more  complex  combinations  and  poli- 
tics of  human  beings  it  is  likely  to  be  hard  to  find  an 
agreed  criterion  for  saying  which  nation  is  before  another, 
or  what  age  of  a nation  was  marching  forward  and 
which  was  falling  back.  Archbishop  Manning  would 
have  :>ne  rule  of  progress  and  decline ; Professor  Huxley, 


VERIFIABLE  PROGRESS  POLITICALLY  CONSIDERED.  207 

in  most  important  points,  quite  an  opposite  rule ; what 
one  would  set  down  as  an  advance,  the  other  would 
set  down  as  a retreat.  Each  has  a distinct  end  which 
he  wishes  and  a distinct  calamity  which  he  fears,  but 
the  desire  of  the  one  is  pretty  near  the  fear  of  the 
other ; books  would  not  hold  the  controversy  between 
them.  Again,  in  art,  who  is  to  settle  what  is  advance 
and  what  decline?  Would  Mr.  Ruskin  agree  with 
anyone  else  on  this  subject,  would  he  even  agree  with 
himself,  or  could  any  common  enquirer  venture  to  say 
whether  he  was  right  or  wrong? 

I am  afraid  that  I must,  as  Sir  ffm.  Hamilton  used 
to  say,  6 truncate  a problem  which  I cannot  solve/  I 
must  decline  to  sit  in  judgment  on  disputed  points  of 
art,  morals,  or  religion.  But  without  so  doing  I think 
there  is  such  a thing  as  4 verifiable  progress/  if  we  may 
say  so  ; that  is,  progress  which  ninety-nine  hundredths  or 
more  of  mankind  will  admit  to  be  such,  against  which 
there  is  no  established  or  organised  opposition  creed, 
and  the  objectors  to  which,  essentially  varying  in  opinion 
themselves,  and  believing  one  one  thing  and  another 
the  reverse,  may  be  safely  and  altogether  rejected. 

Let  us  consider  in  what  a village  of  English  colonists 
is  superior  to  a tribe  of  Australian  natives  who  roam 
about  them.  Indisputably  in  one,  and  tha/t  a main 
sense,  they  are  superior.  They  can  beat  the  Australians 
m war  when  they  like ; they  can  take  from  them 
anything  they  like,  and  kill  any  of  them  they  choose. 


208 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


As  a rule,  in  all  the  outlying  and  uncontested  districts 
of  the  world,  the  aboriginal  native  lies  at  the  mercy  of 
the  intruding  European.  Nor  is  this  all.  Indis- 
putably in  the  English  village  there  are  more  means  of 
happiness,  a greater  accumulation  of  the  instruments 
of  enjoyment,  than  in  the  Australian  tribe.  The 
English  have  all  manner  of  books,  utensils,  and  ma- 
chines which  the  others  do  not  use,  value,  or  understand. 
And  in  addition,  and  beyond  particular  inventions,  there 
is  a general  strength  which  is  capable  of  being  used 
in  conquering  a thousand  difficulties,  and  is  an  abiding 
source  of  happiness,  because  those  who  possess  it  always 
feel  that  they  can  use  it. 

If  we  omit  the  higher  but  disputed  topics  of  morals 
and  religion,  we  shall  find,  I think,  that  the  plainer  and 
agreed-on  superiorities  of  the  Englishmen  are  these: 
first,  that  they  have  a greater  command  over  the 
powers  of  nature  upon  the  whole.  Though  they  may 
fall  short  of  individual  Australians  in  certain  feats  of 
petty  skill,  though  they  may  not  throw  the  boomerang  as 
well,  or  light  a fire  with  earthsticks  as  well,  yet  on  the 
whole  twenty  Englishmen  with  their  implements  and 
skill  can  change  the  material  world  immeasurably  more 
than  twenty  Australians  and  their  machines.  Secondly, 
that  this  power  is  not  external  only ; it  is  also  internal. 
The  English  not  only  possess  better  machines  for  moving 
nature,  but  are  themselves  better  machines.  Mr.  Bab- 
bage taught  us  years  ago  that  one  great  use  of  machinery 


VERIFIABLE  PROGRESS  POLITICALLY  CONSIDERED.  209 


eras  not  to  augment  tlie  force  of  man,  but  to  register 
and  regulate  the  power  of  man ; and  this  in  a 
thousand  ways  civilised  man  can  do,  and  is  ready  to  do, 
better  and  more  precisely  than  the  barbarian.  Thirdly, 
civilised  man  not  only  has  greater  powers  over  nature, 
but  knows  better  how  to  use  them,  and  by  better 
I here  mean  better  for  the  health  and  comfort  of  his 
present  body  and  mind.  He  can  lay  up  for  old  age, 
which  a savage  having  no  durable  means  of  sustenance 
cannot ; he  is  ready  to  lay  up  because  he  can  distinctly 
foresee  the  future,  which  the  vague-minded  savage  can- 
not; he  is  mainly  desirous  of  gentle,  continuous  pleasure, 
whereas  the  barbarian  likes  wild  excitement,  and  longs 
for  stupefying  repletion.  Much,  if  not  all,  of  these  three 
ways  may  be  summed  up  in  Mr.  Spencer’s  phrase,  that 
progress  is  an  increase  of  adaptation  of  man  to  his 
environment,  that  is,  of  his  internal  powers  and  wishes 
to  his  external  lot  and  life.  Something  of  it  too  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  old  pagan  idea  ‘ mens  sana  in  corpore 
sano.’  And  I think  this  sort  of  progress  may  be  fairly 
investigated  quite  separately,  as  it  is  progress  in  a sort 
of  good  everyone  worth  reckoning  with  admits  and 
agrees  in.  No  doubt  there  will  remain  people  like  the 
aged  savage,  who  in  his  old  age  went  back  to  his 
savage  tribe  and  said  that  he  had  ‘ tried  civilisation  for 
forty  years,  and  it  was  not  worth  the  trouble.’  But  we 
need  not  take  account  of  the  mistaken  ideas  of  unfit 
men  and  beaten  races.  On  the  whole  the  plainer  sort 


210 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


of  civilisation,  the  simpler  moral  training,  and  the  more 
elementary  education  are  plain  benefits.  And  though 
there  may  be  doubt  as  to  the  edges  of  the  conception 
yet  there  certainly  is  a broad  road  of  e verifiable  pro- 
gress 9 which  not  only  discoverers  and  admirers  will  like, 
but  which  all  those  who  come  upon  it  will  use  and  value. 

Unless  some  kind  of  abstraction  like  this  is  made  in 
the  subject  the  great  problem  c What  causes  progress  ? 9 
will,  I am  confident,  long  remain  unsolved.  Unless  we 
are  content  to  solve  simple  problems  first,  the  whole 
history  of  philosophy  teaches  that  we  shall  never  solve 
hard  problems.  This  is  the  maxim  of  scientific  humility 
so  often  insisted  on  by  the  highest  enquirers  that,  in  in- 
vestigations, as  in  life,  those  4 who  exalt  themselves  shall 
be  abased,  and  those  who  humble  themselves  shall  be 
exalted ; 9 and  though  we  may  seem  mean  only  to  look 
for  the  laws  of  plain  comfort  and  simple  present  happi- 
ness, yet  we  must  work  out  that  simple  case  first, 
before  we  encounter  the  incredibly  harder  additional 
difficulties  of  the  higher  art,  morals  and  religion. 

The  difficulty  of  solving  the  problem  even  thus 
limited  is  exceedingly  great.  The  most  palpable  facts 
are  exactly  the  contrary  to  wThat  we  should  expect. 
Lord  Macaulay  tells  us  that  c In  every  experimental 
science  there  is  a tendency  towards  perfection.  In 
every  human  being  there  is  a tendency  to  ameliorate 
his  condition ; 9 and  these  two  principles  operating  every- 
where and  always,  might  well  have  been  expected  to 


VERIFIABLE  PROGRESS  POLITICALLY  CONSIDERED.  211 


carry  mankind  rapidly  forward/  Indeed,  taking  veri- 
fiable progress  in  the  sense  which  has  just  been  given 
to  it,  we  may  say  that  nature  gives  a prize  to  every 
single  step  in  it.  Everyone  that  makes  an  invention 
that  benefits  himself  or  those  around  him,  is  likely  to  be 
more  comfortable  himself  and  to  be  more  respected  by 
those  around  him.  To  produce  new  things  ‘ serviceable 
to  man’s  life  and  conducive  to  man’s  estate,’  is,  we 
should  say,  likely  to  bring  increased  happiness  to  the 
producer.  It  often  brings  immense  reward  certainly 
now;  a new  form  of  good  steel  pen,  a way  of  making 
some  kind  of  clothes  a,  little  better  or  a little  cheaper, 
have  brought  men  great  fortunes.  And  there  is  the 
same  kind  of  prize  for  industrial  improvement  in  the 
earliest  times  as  in  the  latest ; though  the  benefits  so 
obtainable  in  early  society  are  poor  indeed  in  com- 
parison with  those  of  advanced  society.  Nature  is  like 
a schoolmaster,  at  least  in  this,  she  gives  her  finest 
prizes  to  her  high  and  most  instructed  classes.  Still, 
even  in  the  earliest  society,  nature  helps  those  who  can 
help  themselves,  and  helps  them  very  much. 

All  this  should  have  made  the  progress  of  mankind — ■ 
progress  at  least  in  this  limited  sense — exceedingly 
common ; but,  in  fact,  any  progress  is  extremely  rare. 
As  a rule  (and  as  has  been  insisted  on  before)  a stationary 
state  is  by  far  the  most  frequent  condition  of  man,  as 
far  as  history  describes  that  condition ; the  progressive 
state  is  only  a rare  and  an  occasional  exception. 


212 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


Before  historj  began  there  must  have  been  in  the 
nation  which  writes  it  much  progress ; else  there  could 
have  been  no  history.  It  is  a great  advance  in  civili- 
sation to  be  able  to  describe  the  common  facts  of  life, 
and  perhaps,  if  we  were  to  examine  it,  we  should  find 
that  it  was  at  least  an  equal  advance  to  wish  to  describe 
them.  But  very  few  races  have  made  this  step  of  pro- 
gress ; very  few  have  been  capable  even  of  the  meanest 
sort  of  history ; and  as  for  writing  such  a history  as 
that  of  Thucydides,  most  nations  could  as  soon  have 
constructed  a planet.  When  history  begins  to  record, 
she  finds  most  of  the  races  incapable  of  history,  arrested, 
un progressive,  and  pretty  much  where  they  are  now. 

Why,  then,  have  not  the  obvious  and  natural  causes 
of  progress  (as  we  should  call  them)  produced  those 
obvious  and  natural  effects  ? Why  have  the  real  for- 
tunes of  mankind  been  so  different  from  the  fortunes 
which  we  should  expect  ? This  is  the  problem  which 
in  various  forms  I have  taken  up  in  these  papers,  and 
this  is  the  outline  of  the  solution  which  I have  at- 
tempted to  propose. 

The  progress  of  man  requires  the  co-operation  of  men 
for  its  development.  That  which  any  one  man  or  any  one 
family  could  invent  for  themselves  is  obviously  exceed- 
ingly limited.  And  even  if  this  were  not  true,  isolated 
progress  could  never  be  traced.  The  rudest  sort  of  co- 
operative society,  the  lowest  tribe  and  the  feeblest  govern- 
ment, is  so  much  stronger  than  isolated  man,  that  isolated 


VERIFIABLE  PROGRESS  POLITICALLY  CONSIDERED.  213 


man  (if  he  ever  existed  in  any  shape  which  could  be  called 
man),  might  very  easily  have  ceased  to  exist.  The  first 
principle  of  the  subject  is  that  man  can  only  make  pro- 
gress in  6 co-operative  groups ; 5 I might  say  tribes  and 
nations,  but  I use  the  less  common  word  because  few 
people  would  at  once  see  that  tribes  and  nations  are 
co-operative  groups,  and  that  it  is  their  being  so  which 
makes  their  value ; that  unless  you  can  make  a strong 
co-operative  bond,  your  society  will  be  conquered  and 
killed  out  by  some  other  society  which  has  such  a bond ; 
and  the  second  principle  is  that  the  members  of  such  „ 
a group  should  be  similar  enough  to  one  another 
to  co-operate  easily  and  readily  together.  The  co- 
operation in  all  such  cases  depends  on  a felt  union  of 
heart  and  spirit ; and  this  is  only  felt  when  there  is  a 
great  degree  of  real  likeness  in  mind  and  feeling,  how- 
ever that  likeness  may  have  been  attained. 

This  needful  co-operation  and  this  requisite  likeness 
I believe  to  have  been  produced  by  one  of  the  strongest 
yokes  (as  we  should  think  if  it  were  to  be  reimposed  now) 
and  the  most  terrible  tyrannies  ever  known  among  men 
— the  authority  of  6 customary  law/  In  its  earlier  stage 
this  is  no  pleasant  power — no  6 rose-water  9 authority,  as 
Carlyle  would  have  called  it — but  a stern,  incessant,  im- 
placable rule.  And  the  rule  is  often  of  most  childish 
origin,  beginning  in  a casual  superstition  or  local  acci- 
dent. 4 These  people/  says  Captain  Palmer  of  the  Fiji, 
are  very  conservative.  A chief  was  one  day  going  over  a 


214 


PHYSICS  AN D POLITICS. 


mountain-path  followed  by  a long  string  of  his  people, 
when  he  happened  to  stumble  and  fall ; all  the  rest  of 
the  people  immediately  did  the  same  except  one  man, 
who  was  set  upon  by  the  rest  to  know  whether  he  con- 
sidered himself  better  than  the  chief.5  What  can  be 
worse  than  a life  regulated  by  that  sort  of  obedience, 
and  that  sort  of  imitation  ? This  is,  of  course,  a bad.  speci- 
men, but  the  nature  of  customary  law  as  we  everywhere 
find  it  in  its  earliest  stages  is  that  of  coarse  casual  com- 
prehensive usage,  beginning,  we  cannot  tell  how,  de- 
ciding, we  cannot  tell  why,  but  ruling  everyone  in 
almost  every  action  with  an  inflexible  grasp. 

The  necessity  of  thus  forming  co-operative  groups  by 
fixed  customs  explains  the  necessity  of  isolation  in  early 
society.  As  a matter  of  fact  all  great  nations  have 
been  prepared  in  privacy  and  in  secret.  They  have 
been  composed  far  away  from  all  distraction.  Greece, 
Rome,  Judaea,  were  framed  each  by  itself,  and  the 
antipathy  of  each  to  men  of  different  race  and  different 
speech  is  one  of  their  most  marked  peculiarities,  and 
quite  their  strongest  common  property.  And  the  in- 
stinct of  early  ages  is  a right  guide  for  the  needs  of 
early  ages.  Intercourse  with  foreigners  then  broke 
down  in  states  the  fixed  rules  which  were  forming  their 
characters,  so  as  to  be  a cause  of  weak  fibre  of  mind,  of 
desultory  and  unsettled  action;  the  living  spectacle  of 
an  ad  mitted  unbelief  destroys  the  binding  authority  of 
religious  custom  and  snaps  the  social  cord. 


VERIFIABLE  PROGRESS  POLITICALLY  CONSIDERED.  215 


Thus  we  see  the  use  of  a sort  of  ‘ preliminary  5 age  in 
societies,  when*  trade  is  bad  because  it  prevents  the 
separation  of  nations,  because  it  infuses  distracting 
ideas  among  occupied  communities,  because  it  6 brings 
alien  minds  to  alien  shores.5  And  as  the  trade  which  we 
now  think  of  as  an  incalculable  good,  is  in  that  age  a 
formidable  evil  and  destructive  calamity;  sowar  and 
conquest,  which  we  commonly  and  justly  see  to  be  now 
evils,  are  in  that  age  often  singular  benefits  and  great 
advantages.  f It  is  only  by  the  competition  of  customs 
that  bad  customs  can  be  eliminated  and  good  customs 
multiplied.  Conquest  is  the  premium  given  by  nature 
to  those  national  characters  which  their  national  customs 
have  made  most  fit  to  win  in  war,  and  in  many  most 
material  respects  those  winning  characters  are  really  the 
best  characters.  The  characters  which  do  win  in  war 
are  the  characters  which  we  should  wish  to  win  in  war. 

Similarly,  the  best  institutions  have  a natural  military 
advantage  over  bad  institutions.  The  first  great  victory 
of  civilisation  was  the  conquest  of  nations  with  ill-defined 
families  having  legal  descent  through  the  mother  only, 
by  nations  of  definite  families  tracing  descent  through 
the  father  as  well  as  the  mother,  or  through  the  father 
only.  Such  compact  families  are  a much  better  basis 
for  military  discipline  than  the  ill-bound  families  which 
indeed  seem  hardly  to  be  families  at  all,  where  4 pater- 
nity 5 is,  for  tribal  purposes,  an  unrecognised  idea,  and 
where  only  the  physical  fact  of  ‘ maternity  5 is  thought 


216 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


to  be  certain  enough  to  be  the  foundation  of  law  or  cus- 
tom. The  nations  with  a thoroughly  compacted  family 
system  have  6 possessed  the  earth/  that  is,  they  have 
taken  all  the  finest  districts  in  the  most  competed-for 
parts ; and  the  nations  with  loose  systems  have  been 
merely  left  to  mountain  ranges  and  lonely  islands. 
The  family  system  and  that  in  its  highest  form  has  been 
so  exclusively  the  system  of  civilisation,  that  literature 
hardly  recognises  any  other,  and  that,  if  it  were  not  for 
the  living  testimony  of  a great  multitude  of  scattered 
communities  which  are  c fashioned  after  the  structure 
of  the  elder  world/  we  should  hardly  admit  the  possi- 
bility of  something  so  contrarj"  to  all  which  we  have 
lived  amongst,  and  which  we  have  been  used  to 
think  of.  After  such  an  example  of  the  fragmentary 
nature  of  the  evidence  it  is  in  comparison  easy  to 
believe  that  hundreds  of  strange  institutions  may  have 
passed  away  and  have  left  behind  them  not  only  no 
memorial,  but  not  even  a trace  or  a vestige  to  help  the 
imagination  to  figure  what  they  were. 

I cannot  expand  the  subject,  but  in  the  same  way  the 
better  religions  have  had  a great  physical  advantage, 
if  I may  say  so,  over  the  worse.  They  have  given 
what  I may  call  a confidence  in  the  universe . The  savage 
subjected  to  a mean  superstition,  is  afraid  to  walk 
simply  about  the  world — he  cannot  do  this  because  it  is 
ominous,  or  he  must  do  that  because  it  is  lucky,  or  he 
cannot  do  anything  at  all  till  the  gods  have  spoken  and 


VERIFIABLE  PROGRESS  POLITICALLY  CONSIDERED.  217 


given  him  leave  to  begin.  But  under  the  higher  re- 
ligions there  is  no  similar  slavery  and  no  similar  terror. 
The  belief  of  the  Greek 

els  olccvos  tiipKTTos  a /jlvv€<t9cu  tt ep\  Trdrprjs  ; 

the  belief  of  the  Roman  that  he  was  to  trust  in  the 
gods  of  Rome,  for  those  gods  are  stronger  than  all 
others ; the  belief  of  CromwelPs  soldiery  that  they  were 
‘ to  trust  in  God  and  keep  their  powder  dry/  are  great 
steps  in  upward  progress,  using  progress  in  its  narrowest 
sense.  They  all  enabled  those  who  believed  them  ‘ to 
take  the  world  as  it  comes/  to  be  guided  by  no  unreal 
reason,  and  to  be  limited  by  no  mystic  scruple ; when- 
ever they  found  anything  to  do,  to  do  it  with  their 
might.  And  more  directly  what  I may  call  ihe  forti- 
fying religions,  that  is  to  say,  those  which  lay  the 
plainest  stress  on  the  manly  parts  of  morality — upon 
valour,  on  truth  and  industry — have  had  plainly  the  most 
obvious  effect  in  strengthening  the  races  which  believed 
them,  and  in  making  those  races  the  winning  races. 

No  doubt  many  sorts  of  primitive  improvement  are 
pernicious  to  war ; an  exquisite  sense  of  beauty,  a love  of 
meditation,  a tendency  to  cultivate  the  force  of  the  mind 
at  the  expense  of  the  force  of  the  body,  for  example,  help 
in  their  respective  degrees  to  make  men  less  warlike  than 
they  would  otherwise  be.  But  these  are  the  virtues  of 
other  ages.  The  first  work  of  the  first  ages  is  to  bind 
men  together  in  the  strong  bond  of  a rough,  coarse,  harsh 


218 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


custom  ; and  the  incessant  conflict  of  nations  effects  this 
in  the  best  way.  Every  nation  is  an  ‘ hereditary  co-ope- 
rative group/  bound  by  a fixed  custom  ; and  out  of  those 
groups  those  conquer  which  have  the  most  binding  and 
most  invigorating  customs,  and  these  are,  as  a rough 
rule,  the  best  customs.  The  majority  of  the  ‘ groups  5 
which  win  and  conquer  are  better  than  the  majority  of 
those  which  fail  and  perish,  and  thus  the  first  world 
grew  better  and  wms  improved. 

This  early  customary  world  no  doubt  continued  for 
ages.  The  first  history  delineates  great  monarchies, 
each  composed  of  a hundred  customary  groups,  all  of 
which  believed  themselves  to  be  of  enormous  antiquity, 
and  all  of  which  must  have  existed  for  very  many  gene- 
rations. The  first  historical  world  is  not  a new-looking 
thing  but  a very  ancient,  and  according  to  principle  it 
is  necessary  that  it  should  exist  for  ages.  If  human 
nature  was  to  be  gradually  improved,  each  generation 
must  be  born  better  tamed,  more  calm,  more  capable 
of  civilisation — in  a word,  more  legal  than  the  one 
before  it,  and  such  inherited  improvements  are  always 
slow  and  dubious.  Though  a few  gifted  people  may 
advance  much,  the  mass  of  each  generation  can  im- 
prove but  very  little  on  the  generation  which  preceded 
it ; and  even  the  slight  improvement  so  gained  is  liable 
to  be  destroyed  by  some  mysterious  atavism — some 
strange  recurrence  to  a primitive  past.  Long  ages  of 
dreary  monotony  are  the  first  facts  in  the  history  of 


VERIFIABLE  PROGRESS  POLITICALLY  CONSIDERED.  219 


numan  communities,  but  those  ages  were  not  lost  to 
mankind,  for  it  was  then  that  was  formed  the  compara- 
tively gentle  and  guidable  thing  which  we  now  call 
human  nature. 

And  indeed  the  greatest  difficulty  is  not  in  preserving 
such  a world  but  in  ending  it.  We  have  brought  in  the 
yoke  of  custom  to  improve  the  world,  and  in  the  world 
the  custom  sticks.  In  a thousand  cases — in  the  great 
majority  of  cases — the  progress  of  mankind  has  been 
arrested  in  this  its  earliest  shape ; it  has  been  closely 
embalmed  in  a mummy-like  imitation  of  its  primitive 
existence.  I have  endeavoured  to  show  in  what  manner, 
and  how  slowly,  and  in  how  few  cases  this  yoke  of  custom 
was  removed.  It  was  c government  by  discussion 5 
which  broke  the  bond  of  ages  and  set  free  the  origi- 
nality of  mankind.  Then,  and  then  only,  the  motives 
which  Lord  Macaulay  counted  on  to  secure  the  progress 
of  mankind,  in  fact,  begin  to  work ; then  6 the  ten- 
dency in  every  man  to  ameliorate  his  condition 5 
begins  to  be  important,  because  then  man  can  alter  his 
condition  while  before  he  is  pegged  down  by  ancient 
usage  ; then  the  tendency  in  each  mechanical  art  to- 
wards perfection  begins  to  have  force,  because  the  artist 
is  at  last  allowed  to  seek  perfection,  after  having  been 
forced  for  ages  to  move  in  the  straight  furrow  of  the  old 
*5xed  way. 

As  soon  as  this  great  step  upwards  is  once  made, 
all  or  almost  all,  the  higher  gifts  and  graces  of 


220 


PHYSICS  ANI)  POLITICS. 


humanity  have  a rapid  and  a definite  effect  on 
‘verifiable  progress’  — on  progress  in  the  narrowest, 
because  in  the  most  universally  admitted  sense  of 
the  term.  Success  in  life,  then,  depends,  as  we 
have  seen,  more  than  anything  else  on  ‘ animated 
moderation,’  on  a certain  combination  of  energy  of 
mind  and  balance  of  mind,  hard  to  attain  and  harder  to 
keep.  And  this  subtle  excellence  is  aided  by  all  the  finer 
graces  of  humanity.  It  is  a matter  of  common  obser- 
vation that,  though  often  separated,  fine  taste  and  fine 
judgment  go  very  much  together,  and  especially  that  a 
man  with  gross  want  of  taste,  though  he  may  act 
sensibly  and  correctly  for  a while,  is  yet  apt  to  break 
out,  sooner  or  later,  into  gross  practical  error.  In 
metaphysics,  probably  both  taste  and  judgment  involve 
what  is  termed  ‘poise  of  mind,’  that  is  the  power 
of  true  passiveness  — the  faculty  of  ‘waiting’  till 
the  stream  of  impressions,  whether  those  of  life  or 
those  of  art  have  done  all  that  they  have  to  do, 
and  cut  their  full  type  plainly  upon  the  mind.  The 
ill-judging  and  the  untasteful  are  both  over-eager;  both 
move  too  quick  and  blur  the  image.  In  this  way  fche 
union  between  a subtle  sense  of  beauty  and  a subtle 
discretion  in  conduct  is  a natural  one,  because  it  rests 
on  the  common  possession  of  a fine  power,  though,  in 
matter  of  fact,  that  union  may  be  often  disturbed. 
A complex  sea  of  forces  and  passions  troubles  men 


VERIFIABLE  PROGRESS  POLITICALLY  CONSIDERED.  221 


in  life  and  action,  which  in  the  calmer  region  of  art  are 
hardly  to  be  felt  at  all.  And,  therefore,  the  cultivation 
of  a fine  taste  tends  to  promote  the  function  of  a fine 
judgment,  which  is  a main  help  in  the  complex  world 
of  civilised  existence.  Just  so  too  the  manner  in  which 
the  more  delicate  parts  of  religion  daily  work  in  producing 
that  ‘ moderation ? which,  upon  the  whole,  and  as  a 
rule,  is  essential  to  long  success,  defining  success  even 
in  its  most  narrow  and  mundane  way,  might  be  worked 
out  in  a hundred  cases,  though  it  would  not  suit  these 
pages.  Many  of  the  finer  intellectual  tastes  have  a 
similar  restraining  effect ; they  prevent,  or  tend  to 
prevent,  a greedy  voracity  after  the  good  things  of  life, 
which  makes  both  men  and  nations  in  excessive  haste  to 
be  rich  and  famous,  often  makes  them  do  too  much  and 
do  it  ill,  and  so  often  leaves  them  at  last  without  money 
and  without  respect. 

But  there  is  no  need  to  expand  this  further.  The 
principle  is  plain  that,  though  these  better  and  higher 
graces  of  humanity  are  impediments  and  encumbrances 
in  the  early  fighting  period,  yet  that  in  the  later  era  they 
are  among  the  greatest  helps  and  benefits,  and  that  as 
soon  as  governments  by  discussion  have  become  strong 
enough  to  secure  a stable  existence,  and  as  soon  as 
they  have  broken  the  fixed  rule  of  old  custom,  and 
have  awakened  the  dormant  inventiveness  of  men,  then, 
for  the  first  time,  almost  every  part  of  human  nature 


222 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


begins  to  spring  forward,  and  begins  to  contribute  its 
quota  even  to  the  narrowest,  even  to  c verifiable  5 pro- 
gress. And  this  is  the  true  reason  of  all  those  pane- 
gyrics on  liberty  which  are  often  so  measured  in 
expression  but  are  in  essence  so  true  to  life  and  nature. 
Liberty  is  the  strengthening  and  developing  power 
- — the  light  and  heat  of  political  nature;  and  when 
some  ‘Caesarism5  exhibits  as  it  sometimes  will  an  ori- 
ginality of  mind,  it  is  only  because  it  has  managed 
to  make  its  own  the  products  of  past  free  times  or 
neighbouring  free  countries ; and  even  that  originality 
is  only  brief  and  frail,  and  after  a little  while,  when 
tested  by  a generation  or  two,  in  time  of  need  it  falls 
away. 

In  a complete  investigation  of  all  the  conditions  of 
c verifiable  progress,5  much  else  would  have  to  be  set  out ; 
for  example,  science  has  secrets  of  her  own.  Nature 
does  not  wear  her  most  useful  lessons  on  her  sleeve  ; 
she  only  yields  her  most  productive  secrets,  those  which 
yield  the  most  wealth  and  the  most  c fruit,5  to  those 
who  have  gone  through  a long  process  of  preliminary 
abstraction.  To  make  a person  really  understand  the 
‘ laws  of  motion  5 is  not  easy,  and  to  solve  even  simple 
problems  in  abstract  dynamics  is  to  most  people  ex- 
ceedingly hard.  And  yet  it  is  on  these  out-of-the-way 
investigations,  so  to  speak,  that  the  art  of  navigation, 
all  physical  astronomy,  and  all  the  theory  of  physical 


VERIFIABLE  PROGRESS  POLITICALLY  CONSIDERED.  223 

movements  at  least  depend.  But  no  nation  would  before- 
hand have  thought  that  in  so  curious  a manner 
such  great  secrets  were  to  be  discovered.  And  many 
nations,  therefore,  which  get  on  the  wrong  track,  may  be 
distanced — supposing  there  to  be  no  communication — 
by  some  nation  not  better  than  any  of  them  which 
happens  to  stumble  on  the  right  track.  If  there  were 
no  6 Bradshaw 5 and  no  one  knew  the  time  at  which 
trains  started,  a man  who  caught  the  express  would  not 
be  a wiser  or  a more  business-like  man  than  he  who 
missed  it,  and  yet  he  would  arrive  whole  hours  sooner 
at  the  capital  both  are  going  to.  And  unless  I misread 
the  matter,  such  was  often  the  case  with  early  know- 
ledge. At  any  rate  before  a complete  theory  of  ‘ veri- 
fiable progress 5 could  be  made,  it  would  have  to  be  settled 
whether  this  is  so  or  not,  and  the  conditions  of  the 
development  of  physical  science  would  have  to  be 
fully  stated  ; obviously  you  cannot  explain  the  develop- 
ment of  human  comfort  unless  you  know  the  way  in 
which  men  learn  and  discover  comfortable  things. 
Then  again,  for  a complete  discussion,  whether  of  pro- 
gress or  degradation,  a whole  course  of  analysis  is 
necessary  as  to  the  effect  of  natural  agencies  on  man, 
and  of  change  in  those  agencies.  But  upon  these  I 
cannot  touch ; the  only  way  to  solve  these  great 
problems  is  to  take  them  separately.  I only  pro- 
fess to  explain  wluvt  seem  to  me  the  political  pre- 


224 


PHYSICS  AND  POLITICS. 


requisites  of  progress,  and  especially  of  early  progress. 
I do  this  the  rather  because  the  subject  is  insufficiently 
examined,  so  that  even  if  my  views  are  found  to  be 
faulty,  the  discussion  upon  them  may  bring  out  others 
which  are  truer  and  better. 


INDEX. 


A 

Abraham,  slaves  of,  74. 

Acquired  faculty,  transmission  of,  7,  8. 
Activity,  coordinate,  6. 

Age  of  discussion,  156-204.  ' 

Anglo-Saxonism,  modification  of,  36. 

Anne,  age  of,  88. 

Antagonism  of  custom  and  discussion,  174. 
Antiquarians,  views  of  ancestors  regard- 
ing, 2. 

Antiquity  of  man,  2,  3. 

Arithmetical  prodigies,  121. 

Arnold,  Paul-Louis  Courier's  reply  to  Mr., 
59 

Art,  region  of,  221. 

Aryan  races,  early  history  of,  27 ; Germanic 
and  classical  nations  of  the,  181 ; Eastern 
division  of  the,  182 ; ancient  republics  of 
now,  182. 

Atavism,  154,  218. 

Athens,  28,  64,  180. 

Australian  tribes,  207,  208. 

B 

B6ranger,  quotation  from,  59. 

Bishop  Berkeley,  theory  of,  9. 
Boarding-school  changes,  91. 

Buckle,  ideas  of,  10, 11. 


C 

Carlyle,  quotation  from,  61 ; genius  of,  75, 
76. 

Carthage,  182. 

Caste  nations,  meaning  and  origin  of,  147— 
149. 

Church  and  State,  sameness  of,  26. 

Civilization,  first  step  in,  52  ; limits  of  early, 
52  . 53 ; peculiarities  of  Oriental,  53 ; ar- 
rested, 54-57 ; passage  from  first  stage  to 
second  stage  of,  61 ; fixity  of  the  old,  157 ; 
progress  in  a few  civilizations,  158  ; first 
great  victory  in,  215. 


Civilized  ages,  inheritance  of,  1S5, 180. 

Climate,  effects  on  races  of,  109,  110,  183. 

Coherence,  faculty  of,  52. 

Colonization,  days  of,  98. 

Commerce,  a source  of  national  corrup- 
tion, 88.  > 

Comtists,  teachings  of  the,  58;  opponents 
of  the,  58,  59. 

Conditions  of  progress,  64 

Conflict,  uses  of,  41-80,  144. 

Conformists,  35, 146. 

Congeniality  of  sentiment,  a basis  of  selec- 
tion, 98. 

Contracts,  29. 

Cooperating  tendencies  of  persecution  and 
imitation,  103,  104. 

Counting-boys,  121. 

Credulity,  imitative  nature  of,  93. 

Cromwell's  maxim,  76,  217. 

Curtius,  quotation  from,  172,  173. 

Custom,  cake  of,  27,  53  ; breaking  chains 
of,  158;  yoke  of,  161 ; slow  removal  of, 
219 ; adherence  to,  219 ; source  of  early 
customs,  141-143. 

Custom -making  power,  erection  of  a,  137 ; 
easy  divisions  of  society  conduce  to  a, 
143. 

Customary  law,  authority  of,  213-218. 

D 

Democracy,  growth  of,  65  ; likeness  to  the 
grave,  161. 

Despotism,  growth  of.  65. 

Discussion,  age  of,  156-204;  effect  of,  161 ; 
subjects  of,  162:  premium  given  to  in- 
telligence by,  162;  in  French  political  as- 
sembly, 164:  incentive  given  to  poetry, 
science,  and  architecture  by,  165  ; in  sav- 
age tribes,  166  ; in  ancient  Greece.  167- 
169;  Homer’s  Iliad,  169;  beginning  of 
age  of,  170 ; discussion  in  writings  of 
Thucydides,  Aristotle,  and  Plato,  170, 
171;  advantages  of  government  by,  179, 
192,  203  ; enemies  of,  192 ; inherited  de- 


226 


INDEX. 


fects  diminished  by  polity  of,  200 ; of 
English  Constitution,  175,  176. 


E 

Early  legislation,  object  ofa  138. 

Elimination,  principle  of,  35,  36. 

Elizabeth’s  time,  thought  in,  165. 

England,  as  ruled  by  Cromwell,  193*,  arti- 
sans of,  203 ; thought  in,  204 ; superiority 
of  colonists  of,  207,  208. 

English  Constitution,  history  of  the,  175, 
176. 

Epicureanism,  failure  of,  76. 

Evolution,  doctrine  regarding  origin  of  man 
taught  by,  120. 

F 

Fashion,  in  literature,  89;  in  dress,  89; 
conformity  to  Roman,  96. 

Francis  Newman,  sermon  by,  90;  anecdote 
told  by,  132. 

Free  governments,  benefits  of,  195. 

Free  thought,  effects  of  trade  on,  176 ; ef- 
fect of  colonization  on,  177;  court  of  Au- 
gustus, 177;  France  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  178. 

Freewill,  doctrine  of,  10. 

G 

Gamblers,  superstitions  of,  129-132. 

Greek-speaking  nations,  84. 

Creek  discussion,  influence  of,  167-169. 


H 

Hasty  action,  disadvantages  of,  186-192; 
prevention  of,  192 ; dying  out  of  impulse 
to,  194. 

Herodotus,  discourses  of,  170. 

History,  scientific  view  of,  96  : classical, 
169;  mediaeval,  169;  Mitford’s,  168,  169; 
teaching  of  the  best,  62 ; Roman,  62,  63 ; 
Jewish,  63. 

Homer’s  Odyssey,  quotation  from,  14. 

“ Iliad,  absence  of  discussion  in,  169. 


I 

Ideas,  ready  acceptance  of  new,  94 ; pain 
caused  by  new.  163;  aversion  to  new, 
164  : influence  on  thought,  164,  165 

Imitation,  bad,  92;  involuntary,  93;  infec- 
tion of,  95;  in  savages,  101  ; in  children, 
101. 

Imitative  propensity,  uniformity  secured 
by,  89;  strength  of  the,  92;  strength  in 
savages  of  the,  101. 


| India,  irrigation  in,  142;  English  in,  145* 
; estimate  of  English  policy  by  people  of, 
I 156,  157. 

| Infant  life,  mortality  of,  105. 
j Inheritance,  principle  of,  9. 

I Inherited  drill,  18,  27. 

Innovation,  conservative,  81. 

| Instincts,  waning  of,  121. 

1 Institutions,  provisional,  71-74. 

Intuitions,  118. 

Investigations  of  Mr.  McClennan  and  Sir 
John  Lubbock,  125,  126. 

J 

Jeroboam,  the  first  Liberal,  29. 

Jewish  history,  28,  29. 

L 

Law,  the  primary  want  of  primitive  man, 

j 21. 

Legal  fibre,  acquirement  of,  50. 
j Liberty,  panegyrics  on,  222. 
i Line  of  descent,  122-124. 

Literature,  development  of  special,  32/ 

; slow  growth  of,  88 : fashion  in,  89. 

! Lord  Melbourne,  saying  of,  99. 

Luck,  contagiousness  of  idea,  139. 

Lucky  rites,  enforcement  of,  138. 

M 

Manners,  origin  and  use  of,  150-152 ; quo- 
tation from  Sir  John  Malcolm  on,  152-154. 
Maternity,  foundation  of  law,  216. 

Middle  ages,  characteristic  of  the,  174 ; pop- 
ular element  in  polity  of  the,  175. 
Migrations,  143. 

Military  art,  progress  of,  44-50. 
ethics,  mistake  of,  79. 

“ growth,  cause,  49. 

“ vices,  decline  of.  47. 

Mimicry,  propensity  to,  101. 

Mitford’s  history,  168,  169;  Grote’s  reply 
to,  169. 

Models  for  good  and  evil,  97. 

Moderation,  animated,  200;  illustrated  by 
the  English  people,  201 : success  depend- 
ent on.  220. 

Monotheism,  strength  of,  76,  77. 

Morality,  sense  of,  118;  opinions  of  Spen- 
cer. Darwin,  and  Mill  regarding,  119. 
Mulatto  race,  growth  of  the,  68. 
Multiplication,  excessive,  195,196;  quota- 
tion from  Spencer,  197-199. 

N 

National  character,  81-40,  106, 107. 
speech,  37. 

Nations,  inability  of  primitive  man  to  con 


INDEX. 


227 


ceive  of  a nation,  20;  conditions  neces- 
sary to  a polity,  1 84,  185 ; origin  of,  84 ; 
the  product  of  two  forces,  86 ; change  of 
87;  transition  from  stationary  to  pro- 
gressive state,  205,  206 ; nation-making, 
77,  81-1<>5;  nation-changing,  77. 

Natural  selection,  meaning  of,  84. 

Necessarian,  doctrines  of  the,  10. 

New  England,  distinctive  national  character 
of,  97,  98 ; Shelley  in,  146. 

Nonconformists,  35, 146. 

O 

Omens,  religion  of,  133, 134. 

Oratory,  North  American  Indian,  166;  Eng- 
lish, 166. 

Originality,  principle  of,  57-60 ; repression 
of,  159  ; age  of,  165. 

P 

Pascal,  saying  of,  186 

Paternity,  idea  of,  215. 

Patriarchal  man,  17;  mind  of,  18;  condi- 
tion of,  19  ; morals  of,  19,  20. 

Patriarchal  society,  lineaments  of,  13, 14. 

Patriarchal  theory,  views  of  Sir  Henry 
Maine,  12,  22,  23  ; scriptural  account  of, 
12;  legal  testimony,  13. 

Patriarchs,  73. 

Philanthropy,  evils  of,  189. 

Physical  conditions,  over-estimate  of.  85. 

Physical  science,  rise  of,  1S6, 187  ; effect  of 
cver-activity  on,  187,  188  ; in  England, 
204;  humility  in  study  of,  210;  opinion 
of  Macaulay,  210;  secrets  of,  222,  223. 

Political  philosophy,  how  changed?  11. 

Polity,  origin  of,  21-24;  preservation  of, 
24-30. 

Polytheism,  weakness  of,  76,  77. 

Predominant  type,  copying  of,  39. 

Prehistoric  age,  one  of  license,  122-125; 
migrations  in  a,  143,  144;  occupations 
of  society  in  a.  147. 

Prehistoric  man,  investigations  of  Sir  J. 
Lubbock  and  Mr.  Tylor,  112,  113;  mo- 
rality of,  115,  122;  testimony  of  Mr.  Jow- 
ett,  116;  teaching  of  Mr  Gladstone  re- 
garding, 117:  comparison  of  a modern 
savage  to,  120 ; flint  tools  belonging  to, 
121 ; lack  of  sexual  morality  in.  125 ; mar- 
riage relations  of,  125 ; remedies  discov- 
ered by,  127. 

Prehistoric  religions,  126,  127. 

Preliminary  age,  use  of,  215 ; first  work  of, 
217. 

Primitive  animals,  17. 

“ civilization,  arguments  against,  15. 
“ morality,  20. 

“ weapons,  16. 


j Principle  of  natural  selection,  predominance 
l in  human  history,  24;  applied  to  human 
i progress,  43-50 ; applied  to  animals,  50, 
j 51. 

Principles  of  1789,  29,  30, 

Progress,  different  ideas  regarding,  41,42; 
laws  of,  43  ; conditions  of,  64 ; source  of, 
160;  in  Athene,  171;  in  Judaea,  172-174 ; 
rule  of,  206 ; in  art,  207 ; verifiable,  207- 
224 ; quotation  from  Spencer,  209 ; causes 
of,  210 ; slow,  210-212 ; cooperation  neces- 
sary to,  212. 


E 

Paces,  mixture  of,  67-71, 144 ; unity  of,  68  ; 
opinion  of  M.  Quatrefages,  68,  69 ; con- 
test of,  82  ; original  diversity  of,  83  ; cli- 
matic influences  on  the  development  of, 
84-86;  the  cause  of  types,  183  ; prelimi- 
nary processes  in  formation  of,  136,  137 ; 
broadly  marked,  86 ; peculiarities  of,  107, 
108 ; multiplication  of,  195. 

Eeflex  actions,  illustrations  of,  4 ; natural,. 
5 ; artificial,  5 ; the  basis  of  all  improve- 
ment, 6 ; rule  of,  6. 

Eeligions,  fear  an  element  in  early,  55,  56 ; 
function  in  civilization  of  awful,  57  ; Jew- 
ish, 63  ; advantages  of  the  higher,  216, 
217;  influence  of  discussion,  176;  mili- 
tary advantages  of  religion,  75. 

Eepublics,  of  Greece  and  Eome,  28,  158; 
quickening  influence  of  early,  166 ; An- 
dorra. 179;  Semitic,  182. 

Eoman  family,  discipline  in  a,  123,  124. 

S 

Savage  mind,  described  by  Sir  J.  Lubbock, 
18;  delineated  in  poems  of  Homer,  18; 
superstitions  of  the,  126,  127 ; peculiarity 
of  the,  120 ; quotation  from  Captain  Gal- 
ton,  51. 

Savage  nations,  sameness  of,  100 ; strength 
of  imitative  propensity  in,  101  ; perse- 
cuting tendency  cf,  102;  wasting  away 
of,  47,  48. 

Science  of  history,  11. 

Selection,  through  infant  mortality,  105; 
favorites,  106 ; unconscious,  146  ; con- 
scious, 146. 

Settlements,  formed  of  emigrants,  99. 

Sir  William  Hamilton,  saying  of,  207 

Slave-owning  communities,  laws  pertaining 
to  children  in,  122. 

Slavery,  71-74. 

Small  cities,  liability  to  destruction,  181  ; 
internal  frailty  of,  181. 

Society,  origin  of,  22-24. 

Sparta,  republic  of,  28;  legislation  of,  38; 
formation  of  Spartan  character,  147. 


228 


INDEX. 


Special  creation,  hypothesis  of,  107,  108. 

States,  corporate  liabilities  of,  140 ; history 
of  early  free,  180-182. 

Statesman,  influence  of  leading,  90. 

Stoicism,  success  of,  76. 

Study  of  Nature,  discouraged  by  Socrates, 
161. 

Style,  making  of  a,  83 ; effect  of  traditional, 
34;  uniform,  88;  Saturday  Review , 83. 

Superstitions,  126-134,139. 

T 

Taste,  good  judgment  allied  to  good,  221 ; 
cultivation  of,  221;  intellectual,  221. 

Teachings  of  prehistoric  ethnology,  15. 

Theories  of  mind  and  matter,  9. 

Theory  of  Dr.  G-alton,  146. 

k-  Times,”  best  contributer  to  the,  88. 

Toleration,  a modern  idea,  160  ; learned  in 
discussion,  163. 

Townships,  growth  of  Western,  98. 

Trade,  dislike  of  old  governments  to,  38; 


quotation  from  Dr.  Arnold,  38,  39;  an 
evil,  215. 

Type,  guidance  by,  90-92. 

U 

Union  of  progressiveness  and  legality,  OI- 
OS ; of  good  judgment  and  good  taste, 
220. 

Usage,  in  early  civilizations,  55;  deliver- 
ance from  the  yoke  of  inherited,  169. 

Y 

Variation,  tendencies  to,  57  ; opposing  ten- 
dencies, 60 ; despotism  opposed  to,  65. 

W 

Wallace’s  speculations  on  ethnology,  86. 

War,  virtues  generated  by,  74  ; function  of, 
77,  78 ; contempt  for  physical  weakness 
inculcated  by,  78,  79;  effect  on  society 
of,  144  ; morality  colored  by  spirit  of,  79. 

Witchcraft,  belief  in,  98. 


THE  END. 

4 


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